Here’s an interesting blog post from Marti Hand, RN, Artist, Advocate for creativity and the arts in healthcare. It is [her] belief that medical treament is fully effective only when the whole person is being treated - body, mind, spirit, emotions.

She writes about a study that showed that patients who rely heavily on their religious faith were 3 times more likely to want intensive, invasive medical procedures like cpr when their hearts stop or being connected to a ventilator (breathing machine). They also made fewer preparations for death, such as living wills, giving someone power of attorney, or filling out a “do not resuscitate” forms.

“I’m known for my work on healthy living. It occurred to me that all life eventually comes to an end no matter how healthfully you live. There is no cure for mortality. The better and the further in advance you plan for that end, the less traumatic it’s likely to be, not just for you but for those you leave behind.

Everyone is willing to talk about nutrition and food and healthy living. But people aren’t so willing to talk about dying. I really want to raise the public consciousness about the importance of having these kinds of discussions.” Jane Brody

I am 20 years old, and I have been talking to a guy for a few months. We became great friends, and he has recently told me that he has strong feelings for me…

New York (AP) — When Jerald Spangenberg collapsed and died in the middle of a quest in an online game, his daughter embarked on a quest of her own: to let her father’s gaming friends know that he hadn’t just decided to desert them.

Cancer insists on its own time. If you try to defy it, it can break you, physically and spiritually.

Terminally ill patients and their family caregivers often feel abandoned by their doctors and feel a sense of “unfinished business” with them, according to a new study by an oncologist at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.

My doctor would want me to expect, even demand, to be well — and that’s what I want, too. But I am afraid. Afraid to believe in something so ephemeral as remission, reluctant to trust this coquettish sweetness called normalcy

At Paradise Cove, which is on the shore of Lake Grapevine, family and friends came to celebrate the wedding of nine-year-old Jayla Cooper. The ceremony was put together in less than one week.

Authorities in Georgia and Maryland have arrested four people after a sting operation targeting a group which offers assistance to people who want to commit suicide.
The arrests were made after agents from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation set up a sting operation Wednesday at a home in Dawson County, north of Atlanta, where an undercover agent posed as a member of the Final Exit Network suffering from pancreatic cancer who wanted to commit suicide.

It has become a beloved ritual at Dana-Farber: Every day, children who come to the clinic write their names on sheets of paper and tape them to the windows of the walkway for ironworkers to see. And, every day, the ironworkers paint the names onto I-beams and hoist them into place as they add floors to the new 14-story Yawkey Center for Cancer Care.