When I die, my only wish is that Cambodia remain Cambodia and belong to the West. It is over for communism, and I want to stress that. My conscience is clear
Pol Pot on his return from the Sorbonne, Paris.
Saturday, 8 June 2013
Quotes from the Unlikely to be Quoted
"Sometimes - history needs a push".
Vladimir Lenin
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During his secret return from Paris into Russia, living in politically friendly homes, en route to Moscow...travelling as an anonymous being.
The Question: "You have met Comrade Lenin, the Great leader, what is he like?"
Lenin's Answer: "Well, he is much like you or me, but shorter. He is not a physically impressive man, but he does have some ideas, and he enjoys these ideas."
Vladimir Lenin
----------------------------------------------------------------------
During his secret return from Paris into Russia, living in politically friendly homes, en route to Moscow...travelling as an anonymous being.
The Question: "You have met Comrade Lenin, the Great leader, what is he like?"
Lenin's Answer: "Well, he is much like you or me, but shorter. He is not a physically impressive man, but he does have some ideas, and he enjoys these ideas."
The Wake and Hospice Bridge- Palliative Care/buyer information
1: The Wake book is a slim book of about 57 pages about people I've met in Palliative Care nursing. It is intensely personal really, and I still like it the most.
2: Hospice Bridge includes The Wake within in it and is a bigger book with more difficult stories and also the ideological position from which I have worked in the area, which is Zen Atheist, I guess, and it includes my hopes for the future of the science of palliative care. It will be about 150 pages I expect. Neither are big or expensive books.
From recall, I sold The Wake for about $US10 each copy.
I can print off a copy of the simpler more personal The Wake if you like for about $US15.00 these days. Postage would be extra, but only a few dollars as it is a slim book.
I expect the Hospice Bridge book will cost about $US25.00 including slow post, when finished around September 2013.
If you are interested, I can be contacted at johnfitzpatrick999@gmail.com
2: Hospice Bridge includes The Wake within in it and is a bigger book with more difficult stories and also the ideological position from which I have worked in the area, which is Zen Atheist, I guess, and it includes my hopes for the future of the science of palliative care. It will be about 150 pages I expect. Neither are big or expensive books.
From recall, I sold The Wake for about $US10 each copy.
I can print off a copy of the simpler more personal The Wake if you like for about $US15.00 these days. Postage would be extra, but only a few dollars as it is a slim book.
I expect the Hospice Bridge book will cost about $US25.00 including slow post, when finished around September 2013.
If you are interested, I can be contacted at johnfitzpatrick999@gmail.com
Buying Hospice Bridge
If anyone would like to buy the completed "Hospice Bridge - Reflections of Palliative Care 1983-2013" please advise. I expect it will be finished around September this year.
It's a modern text about current therapies and it also notes how little 'death' changes from century to century. It isn't a clinical text, because already there are too many of those. It is a book about reflecting upon a career spent in the clinical and the planning aspects, the remarkable people I've met, the good and awful things experienced, and about the future for palliative care, as I see it.
It also discusses the differences between Palliative Care and Euthanasia from someone who is a Palliative Care Nursing Expert and who also believes Euthanasia is a very good thing.
It's a modern text about current therapies and it also notes how little 'death' changes from century to century. It isn't a clinical text, because already there are too many of those. It is a book about reflecting upon a career spent in the clinical and the planning aspects, the remarkable people I've met, the good and awful things experienced, and about the future for palliative care, as I see it.
It also discusses the differences between Palliative Care and Euthanasia from someone who is a Palliative Care Nursing Expert and who also believes Euthanasia is a very good thing.
Anecdote re Palliative Care & Belief Systems at time of Exit from this world/Hospice Nurses as the other Midwives.
I have to admit that I've noticed over 30 years that, in general, end of life events seem to be, when it comes to belief systems, like this...
Those people at end of life who are profound believers in very regulated Christian morality systems often have an awful time of pain and misery, but their families seem okay.
Devout Buddhists seem to be okay, but their families, if not devout, suffer a lot because often the death is quite awful, visually, symptomatically.
Muslims seem to do okay.
Atheists seem to have the easiest, most relaxed exits. They also seem the most forgiving of others and of the flawed system of health itself.
That's what I have found over 30 years.
In general, people die as they have lived, or as they have faced other problems in life, and families behave exactly as they have dealing with other life problems... they discuss, they come together, they fall apart, they break up, they find purpose, they grow closer or they never see each other again...in this way Death is a potent form of re-arranging reality for all involved, forever.
Sometimes really good people have atrocious deaths and sometimes terrible people on every level, die with grace and a rare kind of acceptance that they have never shown in other aspects of their whole lives.
We shouldn't see the Exit time as the culmination of life...it is really rather just a short period of time in which a range of things can happen. Life looks linear, from birth to death, but human reality is a bit different to that. By time of death the great and important times have been well lived by this time, even if no one wants that to be the truth; and what palliative care does, because of its remarkable precision in this brief period, is to make things easy, cover symptoms and pain and distress quite effectively.
Life is full of things that go right and go wrong and death is much the same, really. The line from Clint Eastwood in "The Unforgiven" ...that 'Deservin' ain't got nothing to do with it'...is actually realistic when it comes to how people die. Fortunately, death doesn't take very long at all.
After 30 years of it I think it's the most normal thing in the world. Palliative Care Nurses are simply the Midwives at the other end of exactly the same journey. Midwifery is a science and an art, as is Palliative Care Nursing to the same extent of skill and specialty.
Those people at end of life who are profound believers in very regulated Christian morality systems often have an awful time of pain and misery, but their families seem okay.
Devout Buddhists seem to be okay, but their families, if not devout, suffer a lot because often the death is quite awful, visually, symptomatically.
Muslims seem to do okay.
Atheists seem to have the easiest, most relaxed exits. They also seem the most forgiving of others and of the flawed system of health itself.
That's what I have found over 30 years.
In general, people die as they have lived, or as they have faced other problems in life, and families behave exactly as they have dealing with other life problems... they discuss, they come together, they fall apart, they break up, they find purpose, they grow closer or they never see each other again...in this way Death is a potent form of re-arranging reality for all involved, forever.
Sometimes really good people have atrocious deaths and sometimes terrible people on every level, die with grace and a rare kind of acceptance that they have never shown in other aspects of their whole lives.
We shouldn't see the Exit time as the culmination of life...it is really rather just a short period of time in which a range of things can happen. Life looks linear, from birth to death, but human reality is a bit different to that. By time of death the great and important times have been well lived by this time, even if no one wants that to be the truth; and what palliative care does, because of its remarkable precision in this brief period, is to make things easy, cover symptoms and pain and distress quite effectively.
Life is full of things that go right and go wrong and death is much the same, really. The line from Clint Eastwood in "The Unforgiven" ...that 'Deservin' ain't got nothing to do with it'...is actually realistic when it comes to how people die. Fortunately, death doesn't take very long at all.
After 30 years of it I think it's the most normal thing in the world. Palliative Care Nurses are simply the Midwives at the other end of exactly the same journey. Midwifery is a science and an art, as is Palliative Care Nursing to the same extent of skill and specialty.
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