Microsoft Word Elisabeth Kubler-Ross On Death And Dying doc

different members of a family cope with terminal illness and how, at times, both members have 
completely different recollections of the same event. Each interview is followed by a brief 
summary relating the material to statements made in earlier chapters. These original interviews will 
speak for themselves. They were purposely left unedited and unabbreviated and demonstrate 
moments when we were perceptive of a patient's implicit or explicit communications and times 
when we did not react in the most responsive manner. The part that cannot be shared with the 
reader is the experience that one has during such a dialogue: the many nonverbal communications 
that go on constantly between patient and physician, physician and chaplain, or patient and chaplain; 
the sighs, wet eyes, the smiles, gestures with the hands, the empty look, the astonished glance, or 
the outstretched hands-all communications of significance which often go beyond words. 
 
Though the following interviews were, with a few exceptions, the first meetings we had with these 
patients, they were in most cases not the only ones. All patients were seen as often as indicated 
until they died. Many of our patients were able to b e discharged home once more, either to die 
there or to be readmitted to the hospital later on. They asked to be called once in a while when at 
home, or they called one of the interviewers "to keep in touch." It happened occasionally that a 
relative would drop in at our office for an informal visit either to gain some insight into a patient's 
behavior and ask for help and understanding, or to share some memories with us later after the 
patient's death. We tried to remain as available to them as we were to the patient during 
hospitalization and thereafter. 
 
The following interviews may be studied in regard to the role the relatives played during these 
difficult times. 
 
Mrs. S. had been deserted by her husband, who was only indirectly informed by their two small 
boys of her fatal illness. It was a neighbor and friend who played the most significant role during 
her terminal illness though she expected her estranged husband and his second wife to take care of 
her children after her death. 
 
(P162) 
 
The seventeen-year-old girl demonstrates the courage of a young person in facing such a crisis. Her 
interview is followed by one with her mother; both of them speak for themselves. 
 
Mrs. C. felt unable to face her own death because of the many family obligations she had to fulfill. 
Here again is a good example of the importance of family counseling when sick, dependent, or old 
people have to be taken care of by the patient. 
 
Mrs. L., who had been the eyes for her visually handicapped husband, uses this role to prove that 
she can still function, and both husband and wife use partial denial in the time of their crisis. 
 
Mrs. S. was a forty-eight-year old, Protestant woman, mother of two young boys whom she raised 
alone. She had expressed a wish to talk to someone and we invited her to come to our seminar. She 
was reluctant and somewhat anxious about coming, but felt greatly relieved after the seminar. On 
the way to the interviewing room she talked casually about her two boys, and it seemed obvious 
that they were her biggest concern during this hospitalization. 
 

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DOCTOR: Mrs. S., we really know nothing about you except for the minute, you know, we talked 
with you before. How old are you? 
 
PATIENT: Let's see. Sunday I'll be forty-eight. 
 
DOCTOR: This coming? I'll have to think of it. This is the second time you have been in the 
hospital? When did you come in the first time? 
 
PATIENT: In April. 
 
DOCTOR: What did you come in for? 
 
PATIENT: This tumor, on my chest. 
 
DOCTOR: What kind of a tumor? 
 
PATIENT: Well, now that I really can't tell you. You see, I don't know enough about this disease to 
know one kind from another. 
 
 
DOCTOR: What do you think it is? How were you told what you have? 
 
PATIENT: Well, you see when I went to the hospital they took a biopsy, and then about two days 
later my family doctor came in and said that the results came back and that it was malignant. But 
actually the name of what kind it was I don't 
 
DOCTOR: But they told you it was malignant. 
 
PATIENT: Yes. 
 
DOCTOR: When was that? 
 
PATIENT: That was in, oh, that must have been in the last part of March. 
 
DOCTOR: Of this year? So until this year you were healthy? 
 
PATIENT: No, no. You see, I have an arrested case of TB, so I have spent months in the sanitarium, 
at one time or another. 
 
DOCTOR: I see. Where, in Colorado? Where did you go to the sanitarium? 
 
PATIENT: In Illinois. 
 
DOCTOR: So, you have had a lot of illness in your life. 
 
PATIENT: Yes. 
 

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DOCTOR: Are you kind of almost used to hospitals? 
 
PATIENT: No. I don't think you ever get used to them. 
 
DOCTOR: And then, how did this illness start? What brought you to the hospital? Can you tell us 
about the beginning of this illness? 
 
PATIENT: I had this little lump. It was like, oh, like maybe a blackhead or something, you know. 
Right here. And it kept getting larger, and painful and, ah, I don't think I'm any different than 
anyone else, I didn't want to go to a doctor and kept putting it off, until finally I realized it was 
getting worse and worse and I had to go and see someone. Well, a few months before that my 
family doctor that I've had for years passed away. And I didn't know who to go to. Naturally, I 
mean, I don't have a husband, I was married for twenty-two years and my husband decided there 
was someone else he wanted. So it was just the boys and I, and I felt that they needed me. I think 
probably that's one reason why I thought that if there was something very serious the matter, why, 
well, I kept saying it just couldn't be. I have to be home with the boys. That was the main reason 
that I put it off. Well, and then when I did go it was getting very large and so painful I 
 
(P164) 
 
couldn't stand it, stand the pain any longer. And when I went to the family doctor, why, he just said 
that he couldn't do anything there in the office. I would have to go to the hospital. And so, I went. I 
think four or five days later I was admitted to the hospital and- I also had a tumor on one ovary. 
 
DOCTOR: At the same time? This was found? 
 
PATIENT: Yes. And I think he intended to do something about that also while I was there, and 
then when he took the biopsy of this and he came back, it was a malignant one and naturally he 
wouldn't do anything else. And so he said he could do nothing more for me there, I would have to 
make up my mind where I wanted to go. 
 
DOCTOR: Meaning to which hospital? 
 
PATIENT: Yes. 
 
DOCTOR: And then you picked this hospital? 
 
PATIENT: Yes. 
 
DOCTOR: How come you picked this hospital? 
 
PATIENT: Well, we have a friend who was a patient here at one time. I know him through my 
insurance, and he couldn't speak high enough of it and the doctors and the nurses. He said the 
doctors are specialists and you'll get wonderful care. 
 
DOCTOR: Are you? 
 

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