Microsoft Word Elisabeth Kubler-Ross On Death And Dying doc

It seemed that things were going from bad to worse and when we stepped in everybody appeared 
relieved that someone else was willing to take care of Sister I. The Sister was asked if she was 
willing to come to our seminar to share some of her thoughts and feelings with us. She appeared 
quite eager to please; the  following discussion took place a few months before her death. 
 
CHAPLAIN: Well, we've talked a bit this morning, about the purpose of the conference. You know 
that doctors and nurses are concerned how we may more effectively respond to patients who are 
seriously ill. I won't say you have become a fixture around here, but a lot of people know you. We 
came down the hall and I think we hadn't gone more than eighty feet and four different staff people 
stopped to say hello. 
 
PATIENT: just before you came a housekeeper who was waxing the floors opened the door just to 
say "Hi." I've never seen her before. I thought this was kind of tremendous. She said, "I just wanted 
to see what  you were like (laughter) because I don't know' 
 
DOCTOR: To see a Sister in the hospital? 
 
PATIENT: Maybe to see a Sister in bed, or maybe she had heard or seen me in the hall and really 
wanted to talk and then decided that she shouldn't spend the time. I don't really know, but I felt this 
out. She said, "I just wanted to say hello." 
 
DOCTOR: How long have you been in the hospital? just to give us a brief summary of the events. 
 
PATIENT: This time it would be practically eleven days. DOCTOR: When were you admitted? 
 
PATIENT: Monday night, two weeks ago. 
 
DOCTOR: But you have been here before. 
 
PATIENT: This is my eleventh admission. 
 
DOCTOR: Eleven admissions, since when? 
 
PATIENT: Since 1962. 
 
DOCTOR: Since '62 you have been in the hospital eleven times? 
 
PATIENT: Yes. 
 
DOCTOR: Is this for the same illness? 
 
PATIENT: No. I was first diagnosed in '53. 
 
DOCTOR: Um hm. What did they diagnose you as? 
 
PATIENT: As Hodgkin's disease. 
 

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DOCTOR: Hodgkin's disease. 
 
PATIENT: But this hospital has the high radiation machine which our hospital does not. Yet, at the 
time I was admitted there was a question of whether they had made the right diagnosis in past years. 
I met the doctor here and within five minutes we confirmed that I did-that I had what I said I had. 
 
DOCTOR: That was Hodgkin's? 
 
PATIENT: Yes. Whereas other doctors have looked at the slides and said I didn't. The last time I 
was admitted I had a rash all over my body. Not rash, sores really, because I scratched from the 
itching. I should say I was covered with sores. I felt like a leper and they thought I had a 
psychological problem. I told them I had Hodgkin's and they thought that was my psychological 
problem, that I insisted that I had it. When they couldn't feel any more nodes which they had felt in 
the past that I had had it but they had controlled it at home by radiation. And they said that I did not 
have it at this time. I said I had it at this time because I felt the same way I had felt before. And he 
said, "What do you think?" I said, "All of this is due to Hodgkin's, I think." And he said, "You are 
completely right." So in that moment he gave me back my self-respect. I knew I had met someone 
here who would work with me on this and not try to make me feel I wasn't ill really. 
 
DOCTOR: In the sense . . . ? (Tape not audible) Well, this was psychosomatic. 
 
PATIENT: Yes well, it was very clever to think that this was 
 
(P52) 
 
my problem, that I thought I had Hodgkin's. It was because they couldn't feel any of the nodes in 
the abdomen where a venogram shows them up right away and an ordinary plate or palpitation 
doesn't show it. It was unfortunate but it was something I had to go through, that's all I can say. 
 
CHAPLAIN: But you were relieved. 
 
PATIENT: Oh, I mean it just, I'm surely relieved because no problem could be solved that I was 
emotionally ill, until I could prove that I was physically ill. I couldn't discuss it anymore with 
people or get relief because I didn't feel they believed that I was ill. You see what I mean, I had to 
almost hide all my sores and I washed out my own bloody clothes and that as much as I could. I 
didn't feel accepted. I'm sure they were waiting for me to work out my own problems, you know. 
 
DOCTOR: You are a nurse by profession? 
 
PATIENT: Yes, I am. 
 
DOCTOR: Where do you work? 
 
PATIENT: At S. T. Hospital. And at that time when all of this started I had been just replaced as 
Director of Nursing Service. I have had six months of my master's program and then they decided 
to put me back in the school to again teach anatomy and physiology, which I told them I couldn't do 
because they had now combined chemistry and physics and I had taken the last chemistry course 

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ten years before and chemistry is entirely different now. And so they sent me for a chemistry course 
that summer in organic and I flunked it. 
 
It was the first time I flunked a course in my whole life. And my father died that year and the 
business was broken up, meaning there was conflict among the three boys as to who was going to 
run the business and it caused bitterness that I didn't know could exist in a family. And then they 
demanded of me that I sell my share. I had been thrilled to even inherit a part in our family business 
and then it just seemed like in every way I didn't count, that I could be replaced in my work, that I 
had to take a teaching job which I didn't feel prepared for. I could see that I had many 
psychological problems and then all summer this situation was going on and in December when I 
had the fever and the chills and I was starting to teach, I found it so hard and became so sick that I 
had to really ask to see a doctor. Even after this time I never went back to the doctor. I was always 
trying my hardest. I had to be sure that the symptoms were so objective, that it was high enough on 
the thermometer that I didn't have to convince anybody. Before they would care for me, you know. 
 
DOCTOR: This is quite different from what we usually hear. Usually the patient likes to deny his 
own illness. But you had to kind of prove that you were physically sick. 
 
PATIENT: Insofar as that I couldn't get care otherwise, it would get to a point where I would 
desperately need I would need to be free to lie down when I felt so punk. And just fake and push 
 
DOCTOR: You can't get any help, professional help when you have an emotional problem? Or are 
you not supposed to have any emotional problems? 
 
PATIENT: I think they were trying to treat me symptomatically. They didn't denv me aspirin but I 
felt that I would never get to the bottom of it unless I found out,* and I did go to see a psychiatrist. 
And he told me that I was emotionally ill because I had been physically ill for so long. And he 
treated my physically. He insisted that they take me out of work, that I have at least ten hours of 
rest a day. Gave me huge dosages of vitamins. And the general practitioner was the one who 
wanted to treat me psychologically. The psychiatrist treated me medically. 
 
DOCTOR: It's a mixed up world, hm? 
 
PATIENT: Yes. And all of the fear I had to see a psychiatrist. I thought he would make me a new 
problem, but he didn't. He kept them from hounding me, once they got me to him, they were kind 
of satisfied, you know. And it was a farce because he treated me exactly how I needed to be treated. 
 
CHAPLAIN: By the general practitioner. 
 
PATIENT: - In the meantime I had been radiated. I was receiving some drugs from him but they 
had stopped the dosage when they thought I had colitis. The radiologist decided the pain 
 
* The patient was being blamed for malingering while she herself was sure that a physical illness 
was causing the variety of symptoms she had. 
 
To make sure that she was right she went to see a psychiatrist who confirmed her conviction. 
 

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