Microsoft Word Elisabeth Kubler-Ross On Death And Dying doc

PATIENT: Yes. 
 
DOCTOR: I'd be curious how you took this, when it was told to you that you had a malignancy. 
How did you take it after postponing, postponing to hear the truth. Or to hear the fact, you know, 
out of your needs to be home and take care of your children. How did you take it when it finally 
had to be said? 
 
PATIENT: When I first heard it I went all to pieces. 
 
DOCTOR: How? 
 
PATIENT: Emotionally. 
 
DOCTOR: Depressed, crying? 
 
PATIENT: Ab ha. I always thought that I couldn't have anything like that. Then when I realized 
how serious it was I thought it's something I have to accept, going all to pieces will solve nothing, 
and I suppose the sooner I can go to someone who can help me the better it will be. 
 
DOCTOR: Did you share this with your children? 
 
PATIENT: Yes. I told them both. I mean, ah, I don't know really how much they really do 
understand. I mean they know it's something that's .very serious but as far as how much they 
understand I don't know. 
 
CHAPLAIN: How about the rest of your family. Did you share this with any others? Do you have 
any others? 
 
PATIENT: I have a fellow, a friend that I've been going with for about five years. He's a very nice 
person and he has been very good to me. And he's been good to the boys, I mean, since I've had to 
be away from the boys he has been overseeing them, seeing that someone was there with them to 
get their meals at night, to be with them. I mean that they aren't entirely alone, you know, entirely 
on their own. Of course, the older boy, probably he would be responsible enough but he is still a 
minor, I feel, until he is twenty-one. 
 
CHAPLAIN: You feel more comfortable with somebody there. 
 
PATIENT: Yes. And then I have a neighbor there. It's more like a duplex, she lives in the other half 
of the house. And she's in and out every day. And she's been helping me with my housework at 
home, between those two months that I was home. She took care of me, you know, she'd give me 
my baths and see that I had a meal to eat. She's a very wonderful person. She's a very religious 
person, you know, in her own faith, and she has done just an awful lot for me. 
 
DOCTOR: What faith does she have? 
 
PATIENT: I don't know whether I really know what church she does go to. 
 

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CHAPLAIN: Protestant? 
 
PATIENT: Yes. 
 
CHAPLAIN: Do you have other family or is this 
 
PATIENT: I have a brother who lives here. 
 
CHAPLAIN: But he's not as close as 
 
PATIENT: We haven't been too close, no. I feel that in the short time that I've known her, she's 
really the closest one I have. I mean, I can talk to her and she talks to me, which makes me feel 
better. 
 
DOCTOR: Um hm. You are lucky. 
 
PATIENT: She's wonderful. I've just never known anyone like her. 
 
(P166) 
 
Nearly every day I get a card or a few lines in the mail from her. It might be silly, it might be 
serious, but, I mean, I even look forward to just hearing from her. 
 
DOCTOR: just that somebody cares. 
 
PATIENT: Yes. 
 
DOCTOR: How long ago did your husband leave you? 
 
PATIENT: In September of '59. 
 
DOCTOR: '59. Then did you have tuberculosis? 
 
PATIENT: The first time was in 1946. I lost my little girl. She was two and a half years old. And at 
that time my husband was in the service. She got very sick and we took her to a specialist in the 
hospital. And; ah, the hardest thing was that I couldn't see her while she was there. And she went 
into a coma and she never did come out of it. They asked if it would be all right to perform an 
autopsy, and I said yes, perhaps it might help someone else someday. So they performed an autopsy, 
and she had what they call miliary Ts. That was in the bloodstream. And when my husband went in 
the service, my father came to live with me. And so afterward we all had checkups and my father 
had quite a large cavity in one lung, and I had just a small amount of trouble. So he and I both went 
into the sanitarium at that time. And I was there about three months, the only medication I had to 
have was bed rest and shots. I didn't have to have any surgery. And then, well, on through the years, 
I was there before and after each one of the boys was born. And I haven't been there now as a 
patient since after the youngest boy was born in '53. 
 
DOCTOR: Your girl was your first child? 

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PATIENT: Yes. 
 
DOCTOR: And the only girl you had. That must have been quite something. How did you recover 
from that? 
 
PATIENT: Well, it was very hard. ', 
 
DOCTOR: What gave you strength? 
 
PATIENT: Prayer, probably, more than anything. She and I were, I mean, she was all I had for all 
that time. She was three months old when my husband left. She was just, well, I really lived for her, 
you know. And I didn't think I could accept but I did. 
 
DOCTOR: And now since your husband left it's the boys that you live for. 
 
PATIENT: Yes. 
 
DOCTOR: That must make it very hard. And now does your religion or prayers or what help you to 
take care of all the times when you have the blues or you feel depressed about your illness? 
 
PATIENT: Prayers I think are the main thing. 
 
DOCTOR: Do you ever think or talk with anybody in terms of how it's going to be if you would die 
of this disease or- You don't think about these things? 
 
PATIENT: Well, ah, I haven't too much, no. Other than this lady friend of mine, she will talk with 
me you know about how serious it is and things that, ah, other than her I haven't talked with anyone. 
 
CHAPLAIN: Does your priest come to see you or do you attend church? 
 
PATIENT: Well, I did go to church before. You know, I hadn't been feeling well for months, even 
before I came in here. And I hadn't been too good at going to church. But 
 
CHAPLAIN: Does the priest come to see you? 
 
PATIENT: The priest came to see me when I was in the hospital there at home before I came here. 
And he was coming down to see me again before I came in, and I guess I just all of a sudden 
decided to come here, so he didn't get to see me before I came. And then after I was here for about 
two or three weeks, Father D. came to see me. 
 
CHAPLAIN: Primarily, though, your faith has been nourished by your own private resources at 
home. Where you haven't had an outlet talking to anyone at church. 
 
PATIENT: No. 
 
CHAPLAIN: But your friend has played this role. 

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