Microsoft Word Elisabeth Kubler-Ross On Death And Dying doc

 
PATIENT: No. 
 
DOCTOR: You know, but that's not true for everybody, you don't share this? 
 
PATIENT: No, no, I know I don't. And I know that we all have a time to go and it's not my time, 
that's all. 
 
DOCTOR: Have you in any way attempted or even thought about that this is the time to get more 
ready to die? 
 
PATIENT: No. I just go on from day to day as I've done before. 
 
DOCTOR: Oh. You never even think in terms of how it is and what it means? 
 
PATIENT: No. I've never thought of it. 
 
DOCTOR: Do you think people should? Since we all have to die one day. 
 
PATIENT: Well, it's never really entered my mind to think of preparing myself to die. I think that if 
the time should come there is something within you that will tell you. I don't feel like I'm ready yet. 
I think I have along time. 
 
DOCTOR: Yes, no one knows. 
 
PATIENT: No, but I mean I just figure that I raised those two boys. I'm gonna help look after those 
grandchildren too. 
 
DOCTOR: You have grandchildren? 
 
PATIENT: Seven of them. 
 
DOCTOR: So you are waiting for them to grow up. 
 
(210) 
 
PATIENT: Now I'm waiting for them to grow up and see my great-grandchildren. 
 
DOCTOR: When you are in the hospital, what kind of things help you best? 
 
PATIENT: Oh, I'd be with the doctors a hundred percent if I can. 
 
CHAPLAIN: I think I know one answer to that, too, and that is that you always have a picture of 
the future, of a goal that you want. You keep saying that all you want is to be able to go home and 
move around. 
 

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PATIENT: That's right. I want to walk again. Which I'm pretty sure I'm gonna do as well as I did 
many years ago. It's a determination. 
 
DOCTOR: What do you think helped that you didn't let go? You didn't give up? 
 
PATIENT: I just feel that the only one I have left at home now is my husband and he's a bigger 
baby than all the babies put together. He is diabetic and it has affected his eyes so he can not see 
too well. We are on disability pension. 
 
DOCTOR: How much can he do? 
 
PATIENT: Well, he can't do too much. His eyesight is poor. He can't see the traffic lights on the 
street. And last time I was in the hospital he was talking to Mrs. S. and she sat on one side of the 
bed and she asked him if he could see her. He said he could see her but she was fuzzy so from that I 
gather that his eyesight is poor. He can see the big headlines in the paper but the second grade 
headlines he has to use a magnifying glass for and from there on he can't see. 
 
DOCTOR: At home who takes care of whom? 
 
PATIENT: Well, he made a promise with me when I came out of the hospital last October that if I 
would be his eyes, he would be my feet and that's our plan. 
 
DOCTOR: That's very nice. How has it worked out? 
 
PATIENT: Well, it has worked out pretty good. He makes a mess of the table accidentally, then I 
do it on purpose so that he thinks that he didn't do it because of his eyesight. If something happens, 
he should stumble or something, why, I tell him I do it all the time and I got two good eyes so he 
shouldn't feel bad about it. 
 
CHAPLAIN: He feels bad sometimes? 
 
PATIENT: Oh, yes, it does bother him at times. 
 
DOCTOR: Has he applied-or considered a dog or applied for some training, some mobility training 
and things like that? 
 
PATIENT: We have a homemaker from the Salvation Army. And the worker has been out to the 
house. She told him that she was going to see if there was something that they could get for him, as 
far as help. 
 
DOCTOR: The Lighthouse for the Blind can evaluate his needs, they give mobility training and a 
cane if necessary. 
 
PATIENT: Well, that would be fine. 
 

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DOCTOR: It sounds like at home you are chipping in for each other and each one does what the 
other one can't do. So you must have a lot of concern about how he's coming along when you are in 
the hospital. 
 
PATIENT: That's right, I do. 
 
DOCTOR: How is he coming along? 
 
PATIENT: Well, my children have him over for the evening meal. Three times a week we have the 
homemaker that comes in and she does the cleaning and the ironing. He is able to do the washing. I 
don't discourage him in anything that he's done. I noticed he has slipped a lot in a lot of things but I 
tell him it looks good, to keep on doing it, and leaving him in charge. 
 
DOCTOR: You kind of keep telling him things to make him feel good. 
 
PATIENT: I try to. 
 
DOCTOR: Do you do that with yourself too? 
 
PATIENT: I don't try to complain about how I feel. When he asks me how I feel I always tell him I 
feel great, until I get to the point where I tell him I have to get into the hospital and they said come 
in. Well, that's about the first that he's learned about it. 
 
DOCTOR: Why, has he ever asked you to do this earlier? 
 
PATIENT: No, I've done it myself because I had a friend that made herself believe that she was 
real ill. She put herself into a wheelchair. From then on I made up my mind that it has to be pretty 
bad before I complain. I think that it was a lesson that I learned through her. She went to doctors all 
over the 
 
(P212) 
 
city to have them agree with her that she had multiple sclerosis. The doctors couldn't find anything 
wrong with her. Today she is in a wheelchair and she just can't walk. Whether she has got it or not I 
just don't know, but she has been like this for about seventeen years. 
 
DOCTOR: But that's another extreme. 
 
PATIENT: Yes, but I mean the way she complains continually and then I have a sister-in-law 
whose fingernails hurt her and it bothers her to shave her legs and everything else, and I can't stand 
that constant complaining from the two of them and I have made up my mind that it has to be pretty 
bad before I'll ever complain. 
 
DOCTOR: Who was like this in your family? Were your parents fighters like that? 
 
PATIENT: My mother just passed away in 49 and the only time I've known her to really be ill is 
twice. The last time was when she had leukemia, she passed away. My father I don't remember too 

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