I'm great at a deathbed. I've never given tranquillisers or psychiatric medicine. I've given love and fun and creativity and passion and hope, and these things ease suffering.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
If you don't have a doctor that inspires you, no matter what you have, you should find one that does. Because I feel like my doctor helped me stay alive.
I know people who are medicated and it's their favorite subject.
I understand what it's like to go to hospitals and there's no medicine, and the best thing you have to give the patients is compassion.
I believe it should be possible for someone stricken with a serious and ultimately fatal illness to choose to die peacefully with medical help, rather than suffer.
I'm attracted to subjects who overcome tremendous suffering and learn to cope emotionally with it.
Probably most dying patients, even when suffering greatly, would choose to live as long as possible. That courage and grace should be protected and honored, and we should put every effort into treating their symptoms.
Hospice is such a tremendous thing. Patients seem to reach an inner peace.
The tricky part of illness is that, as you go through it, your values are constantly changing... You may decide you want to spend your time working as a neurosurgeon, but two months later, you may want to learn to play the saxophone or devote yourself to the church. Death may be a one-time event, but living with terminal illness is a process.
I am one of millions who have been treated for depression and gotten well; I was lucky enough to have a psychiatrist well versed in using lithium and knowledgeable about my illness, and who was also an excellent psychotherapist.
At age 12, I was put on tranquilizers when I should have gotten help. There was nothing major and awful, I just didn't feel my family was supportive and emotionally generous.