Microsoft Word Elisabeth Kubler-Ross On Death And Dying doc

(P54) 
 
in the abdomen was colitis. And so they stopped. They did enough to do some good, but they didn't 
give me enough to stop my symptoms slowly and insidiously, which is what I would have done. 
But they couldn't see them, you see, they couldn't feel these nodes, they just had to go by where my 
pain was. 
 
DOCTOR: So to summarize a bit, to clarify the whole thing, what you are really saying is, when 
you were diagnosed as having Hodgkin's, you also had a lot of problems. Your father died around 
the same time, the business in your family was in the course of being dissolved and they asked you 
to give up your share. Where you worked you were assigned a job you didn't like. 
 
PATIENT: Yes. 
 
DOCTOR: And your itch, which is a very well-known symptom of Hodgkin's, was not even 
considered to be a part of your illness. It was considered your emotional problem. And the general 
practitioner treated you like a psychiatrist and the psychiatrist like a general practitioner. 
 
PATIENT: Yes, and they left me alone. They stopped trying to take care of me. 
 
DOCTOR: Why? 
 
PATIENT: Because I refused to accept their diagnosis and they were waiting for me to get common 
sense. 
 
DOCTOR: I see. How did you accept the diagnosis of Hodgkin's disease? What did this mean to 
you? 
 
PATIENT: Well, when I first-you see, I diagnosed it when I felt it, and so I went and looked it up 
and then told the doctor and he said you don't have to think of the worst at first. And yet, when he 
came back after surgery and told me, I didn't think I'd have more than a year to live. Though I didn't 
really feel so well, I kind of forgot about it and thought, well I'll live as long as I can, you know. 
But since 196o, when all of these problems had started I really have never been well. And there 
were hours of the day when I really felt ill. But it's now accepted and they have never given me any 
indication that they didn't believe I was ill. And at home they've never said anything. I went back to 
the same doctor who stopped the radiation and everything and he's never said a word, except 
 
when I developed nodes again and in that case he was on vacation and so when he came back, I 
told him. I thought he was sincere. There are others who told me sarcastically that I had never had 
Hodgkin's, that the nodes I had developed were probably on some inflammatory basis. This was 
sarcasm, meaning we know better than you. We have decided all of this. He at least was sincere, 
meaning that he had been waiting for something objective all of this time. And that the doctor here 
told me to remember that this man had maybe five of these in his lifetime to deal with and each is 
just a little different. I really have a problem understanding all of these things. So he is one who 
will always call up here and ask the doctor about the dosage and everything. I am afraid of him 
treating me for long because I don't feel he is adequate. I mean if I hadn't continued to come down 
here, I don't think I would be alive. It was because we don't offer the same facilities, and also 

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because he doesn't really understand all these drugs. He tries with each patient where here they 
have tried with fifty before they will try with me. 
 
DOCTOR: Well, what does it mean to you to be so young and have an illness that will eventually 
make you die? In perhaps a short time? 
 
PATIENT: I'm not so young. I'm forty-three. I hope you consider that young. 
 
DOCTOR: I hope you consider that young. (laughter) 
 
CHAPLAIN: For your sake or ours? 
 
DOCTOR: For my sake. 
 
PATIENT: If I ever thought it, I don't think it now because I've watched-last summer for instance 
when I was here all summer, I watched a fourteen-year-old boy with leukaemia die. I watched a 
five-year-old die. I spent the whole summer with a nineteen-year-old girl in great pain and 
frustration. And she couldn't be on the beach with her friends. I have lived longer than they. I don't 
say I have a sense of accomplishment. I don't want to die, I like life. I don't mean that, but I have 
gotten panicky a couple of times when I felt that no one was around or that no one would come. I 
mean sometimes in intense pain and things like that. I don't bother the nurses in the sense that I ask 
for anything I can do myself, 
 
[P56] 
 
which has often made me feel that they aren't aware of how I really feel. Because they don't come 
in and ask. I mean I could have really used a backrub, really, but you see, they don't come in to me 
routinely and do what they do for other patients that they think are ill. I can't give myself a backrub. 
I take the blanket out, I crank the bed down. I do everything else for myself even when I have to do 
it slowly and sometimes I do it in pain. I think this is all good for me. But because of this they don't, 
I don't think they really= I think for hours on end, I think someday if I ever started bleeding or 
going into shock it would be the cleaning lady that finds me, not the staff. Because they just come 
in, you get a pill, and I get a pill two times a day unless I ask for a pain pill... 
 
DOCTOR: How does all that make you feel? PATIENT: Hm? 
 
DOCTOR: How does that make you feel? j' 
 
PATIENT: Well, it's all right except in the times when I have  been in intense pain or when I 
haven't been able to get up  and no one has offered to take care of me. I could ask for this  but I 
don't think this should be necessary. I think they should  be aware of how their patients are. I'm not 
trying to hide any thing but when you try and do as much as you can, again you  pay a price for it 
and see, there's been several times when  I've been very ill, when I-from the nitrogen mustard and  
things like that-a lot of diarrhea, and no one has ever come  to check the stools or ask if I've been 
up ten times. I have to  tell the nurses what is wrong. I mean that I have had ten  stools. Last night I 
knew my X-ray in the morning was not  adequate because they sent me down to do it with too 
much  barium. I had to remind them that I needed six pills to have  the X-ray today. I am aware of 

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