Microsoft Word Elisabeth Kubler-Ross On Death And Dying doc

 
would take it, but I'd sooner know, that's my version of it. I'd sooner be told than have everybody 
else know about it. I think you become more susceptible to the fact that everybody is  s giving you 
too much attention, you'd figure something's wrong, that's the way I feel about it. 
 
DOCTOR: It would make you suspicious anyway. 
 
PATIENT: I think so. 
 
DOCTOR: And then it was 1951 and now it's 1966 and you have been in the hospital, in and out, 
about twenty times. 
 
PATIENT: I should say so. 
 
 
DOCTOR: What do you think you can teach us. 
 
PATIENT: (Laughs) I don't know, I still have a lot to learn. 
 
DOCTOR: What is your physical condition now? I see you have a brace. Do you have difficulties 
with your spine? 
 
PATIENT: This is my spine. I had a spinal fusion last June, a year ago last June 15th, and I am told 
that I have to wear the brace continually. Right now I'm in for a little trouble with my right leg. But 
with the help of the good doctors here in this hospital, why, they'll conquer that for me too. 
 
I had a numbness. I had lost use of it a little bit and had a tingling sensation in the legs, like needles 
and pins. Yesterday they just disappeared. Now I can move my leg freely and it feels back to 
normal again. 
 
DOCTOR: Have you had any recurrence of your malignancy? 
 
PATIENT: No, I haven't. I was told that it's nothing to worry about, that it's dormant at the time. 
 
DOCTOR: How long has it been dormant now? 
 
PATIENT: Well, I suspect that it might have been dormant since the adrenalectomy; of course, I 
don't know too much. If the doctors tell me good news, I let it go at that. 
 
DOCTOR: You like to hear that. 
 
PATIENT: Every time I walk out the door I say to my husband, this is the last time I'm coming 
back here, I'm not going back anymore. When I went out of here last May 7th, he said it for me so I 
wouldn't have to say it. But it didn't last long. I was back here the 6th of August. 
 
DOCTOR: You have a smiling face but deep down there is a lot more sorrow and sadness. 
 

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PATIENT: Well, I guess you get that way at times. 
 
DOCTOR: How do you take it, to have a malignancy, to have twenty hospitalizations, to have your 
breasts removed, and the adrenals removed. 
 
PATIENT: And the spinal fusions 
 
DOCTOR: Spinal fusions, how do you take it all? Where do you get your strengths and what are 
your concerns? 
 
PATIENT: I don't know, I guess just faith in God and the doctors helps me. 
 
DOCTOR: Which one comes first? 
 
PATIENT: God. 
 
CHAPLAIN: We have talked about that before, and yet even though you have this faith to sustain 
you, there are times when you feel unhappy. 
 
PATIENT: Oh, yes. 
 
CHAPLAIN: This is something that is hard to avoid, the depression at times. 
 
PATIENT: Yes. I feel a depression, I think, more when I have been alone for any length of time. I 
think over the past and I think that there is no use laying and thinking about that. It's all behind me. 
I should think more about the future. When I first came down, and knew that I was going to be 
operated on for cancer, why, I had these two boys at home, and I prayed that I would be saved just 
long enough to raise those boys. 
 
(P208) 
 
DOCTOR: They are big boys now, aren't they? So that worked out all right. (Patient crying) 
 
PATIENT: That's a11 I need, excuse me, I need a good cry. 
 
DOCTOR: That's all right. I wonder why you said to avoid the depression. Why should you avoid it? 
 
CHAPLAIN: Well, I used a poor word. Mrs. L. and I have talked a lot about how to deal with 
depression. It's not to be avoided really. It's to be encountered and overcome. 
 
PATIENT: I cannot help but cry sometimes. Sorry 
 
DOCTOR: No, no, I encourage that. 
 
PATIENT: Oh, you did 
 
DOCTOR: Yes, I think avoiding it only makes it rougher, doesn't it? 

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PATIENT: Well, no, I don't. I think you feel worse after you let yourself go, that's my version of it. 
Because anybody that's in like this as long as I have, why, I think you should be thankful for what's 
been in the past. You have a lot that many other people haven't had the opportunity of having. 
 
DOCTOR: Would you be referring to the extra time? 
 
PATIENT: The extra time for one thing. I have witnessed that experience in my own family within 
the last few months. And I feel that I've been very fortunate that these things did not happen to me. 
 
CHAPLAIN: Do you mean the experience of your brother-in-law? 
 
PATIENT: Yes. 
 
CHAPLAIN: He died here. 
 
PATIENT: Yes, the 5th of May. 
 
DOCTOR: What was that experience? 
 
PATIENT: Well, he wasn't sick very long, and he didn't have the opportunity to stay anytime as 
long as I do. I can't say he was an old man. He had an illness that if he had taken care of it from the 
beginning-I think that it was sheer neglect on his part, but nevertheless it wasn't that long. 
 
DOCTOR: How old was he? 
 
PATIENT: He was sixty-three. 
 
DOCTOR: What did he have? 
 
PATIENT: He had cancer. 
 
DOCTOR: Well, did he not pay attention to it or what? 
 
PATIENT: He had been ill for about six months before and everybody had told him that he should 
go to a doctor, go someplace and get care. He would neglect himself until he couldn't care for 
himself any longer. Then he decided to come in here and ask for help. He and his wife were very 
perturbed that they couldn't save his life like they saved mine. As I say, he waited until he couldn't 
stand it any longer. 
 
DOCTOR: Is the extra time a kind of a special time? Different from other time? 
 
PATIENT: No, I can't say it's different. I can't say that because I feel my life is as normal as yours 
and the chaplain's. I don't feel I'm running on borrowed time nor do I feel that I've got to make 
more of this time that's left. I figure my time is the same as yours. 
 
DOCTOR: Some people have the feeling that they are living more intensively. 

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