The Good Death
A Guide for Supporting Your Loved One through the End of Life
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
"A must-read for every family caregiver." ―Hospice Nurse Julie, New York Times bestselling author of NOTHING TO FEAR
Practical wisdom and holistic planning to ease life's most difficult transition, from an acclaimed hospice nurse, death doula, and end-of-life educator.
Many of us have to show up for someone we love at the end of life. Knowing how to do that changes everything. With over twenty years of experience as a hospice nurse, palliative care professional, and founder of the Doulagivers Institute, Suzanne B. O’Brien, RN has trained more than 350,000 people in what can be done to help the dying person, caregiver and other loved ones so they may move through each stage with as much comfort and ease as possible.
In The Good Death, O’Brien provides a comprehensive plan and the empowering knowledge to make a beautiful, sacred, and profound experience for everyone involved. Through practical advice, emotional support, and expert insights, O’Brien gently holds your hand through every aspect of the process, including:
· Learning how fear of death makes end of life harder, and how we can begin to quell it
· Care instructions to ensure your loved one’s comfort
· Support system strategies to avoid burnout as a caregiver
To further empower you in facilitating a good death, the second half of the book is presented workbook-style. The Peace of Mind Planner features prompts to initiate important conversations with your loved one about their physical, mental, emotional, financial, and spiritual preferences, and space to record this important information. The planner allows you to be fully present in these last precious moments, and come away with a thorough plan for your loved one’s end- of- life wishes. With empathy and a careful approach, The Good Death is not only a comprehensive, compassionate, and in-depth resource, it is a beacon of hope and support.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
O'Brien draws on her work as a hospice nurse and death doula in her compassionate debut guide to end-of-life care. Exploring modern discomfort with death, she argues that scientific advances have "medicalized" dying, eroding its humanity as patients are funneled through a health system that "keeps people breathing at all costs" without accounting for their quality of life or discussing what to expect at the end. She unpacks how best to navigate that system by detailing the stages of common end-of-life diseases like lung cancer, how to interpret pain cues to keep the patient comfortable, and how to help them formulate advance directives. More broadly, she advises readers on how to assist the dying person in sorting through weighty emotions, reviewing financial arrangements for the funeral, and drawing up a will. Such advice is worthwhile, and O'Brien's anecdotes about caring for the dying are reassuring, even if she stumbles into generalizations in a less helpful chapter on how spirituality manifests at the end of life. Still, caregivers seeking practical and emotional support will find plenty of value.
