Microsoft Word Elisabeth Kubler-Ross On Death And Dying doc

PATIENT: Nobody knows how long this can still last. I surely have always held onto hope, but this 
is the lowest I have ever been. The doctors have not revealed anything to me. They have not told 
me what they  have found daring the operation. But anybody would know without being told. My 
weight is down to the lowest it has ever been. My appetite is very poor. They say I have an 
infection that they have not been able to discover- When you have leukemia, the worst thing that 
can happen to you is to get an infection on top of it. 
 
DOCTOR: You were upset yesterday when I came to visit you. You had a colon X-ray and. you 
felt like giving somebody a piece of your mind. 
 
PATIENT: Right. You know it is not the big things that count when you are so sick and so weak. It 
is the little things that count. Why in the world can't they talk with me? Why can't they tell you 
before they do certain procedures? Why don't they let you go to the bathroom before they take you 
out of the room like a thing, not like a person? 
 
DOCTOR: What really upset you that much yesterday morning? 
 
PATIENT: It is really very personal, but I just have to tell you. Why don't they supply you with an 
extra pair of pajamas when you go for this colon X-ray? When you get done you are in an absolute 
mess. Then you are supposed to sit in a chair and you just don't have any desire to sit in that chair. 
You know it's going to be a mass of white chalk when you get up, and it's an uncomfortable 
situation. I thought, well, they are so wonderful to me upstairs there in my room but when they 
send me down here to X-ray I feel like a number or something, you know. They do these strange 
things to you and it is very uncomfortable to come back in that state. I don't know how this happens 
but it seems to happen all the time. I don't think it should happen. I think they should tell you ahead 
of time. I was very weak and very tired. The nurse that brought me up here thought I could walk 
and I said, "Well, if you think I can walk I can try." By the time I had all my X-rays and climbing 
up on the table and everything, I was so weak and tired, I wasn't quite sure I could reach my room. 
 
DOCTOR: That must make you feel angry and frustrated. 
 
PATIENT: I don't get angry too often. I suppose the last time I can remember being angry was 
when my older son went out and my husband was working. There was no way to lock the house, 
and, of course, I didn't feel safe to go to sleep with the house unlocked. We are right on the corner. 
There is a street 
 
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light on the corner, and I couldn't fall asleep until I knew the house was locked. I had talked to him 
so much about this and he has been pretty good about calling and letting me know but this night he 
didn't. 
 
DOCTOR: Your oldest son is a problem child, isn't he? You mentioned yesterday briefly that he 
has been emotionally disturbed and retarded too, isn't he? 
 
PATIENT: Correct. He has been in a state hospital for four years. 
 

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DOCTOR: And he is back home now? 
 
PATIENT: He is home. 
 
DOCTOR: Do you feel that there should be more control over him, and you are a bit worried that 
he doesn't have enough control, like you over the unlocked house that night? 
 
PATIENT: That is correct, and I feel that I'm the one that's responsible-so much responsible and I 
can do so little now. 
 
DOCTOR: What happens when you cannot be responsible anymore? 
 
PATIENT: Well, we are hoping that maybe this will open his eyes a little wider because he cannot  
understand things. He has a lot of good in him but he needs help. He could never manage on his 
own. 
 
DOCTOR: Who would help him? 
 
PATIENT: Well, there is the problem. 
 
DOCTOR: Can you speculate, do you have people in your house who would help out? 
 
PATIENT: Well, of course, as long as my husband is living he could look after him. But it is a 
concern because he has to be away from home so many hours working. We have the grandparents 
there but even then I feel that is altogether unsatisfactory. 
 
DOCTOR: Whose parents? 
 
PATIENT: My husband's father and my mother. 
 
DOCTOR: Are they in good health? 
 
PATIENT: No, they are not in good health. My mother has Parkinson's disease and my father-in-
law has a bad heart condition. 
 
DOCTOR: All this in addition to your concerns about your twelve- year-old girl? You have your 
older son and he is a problem. 
 
You have your mother with Parkinson's, who will probably start shaking when she tries to help 
somebody. Then you have a father on your husband's side who has a heart condition and you are 
not well. Somebody should be at home to take care of all those people. This I think is what bothers 
you most. 
 
PATIENT: Right. We try to make friends and hope that the situation would be taken care of. We 
live from day to day. Each day seems to be taking care of itself, but as far as looking ahead, you 
cannot help but wonder. You know, with me having this illness on top of everything else. You 

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never know if you should just try to be wise and accepting the situation calmly from day to day or 
if you should make a drastic change. 
 
DOCTOR: Change? 
 
PATIENT: Yes, there has been a time when my husband said, "a change has to be made." The old 
folks have to go. One would have to go to my sister, the other would have to go to a nursing home. 
You just have to learn to be cold, and put your family in an institution. Even my family doctor 
thinks I should put my son in an institution. And still I cannot accept these things. In the end I went 
to them and said, "No, I may feel worse if you leave, so you stay. And if it ever has to be, if it does 
not work out, you just come back again. If you went away it would be worse." I had advised them 
to come in the first place. 
 
DOCTOR: You would feel guilty if they went to a nursing home? 
 
PATIENT: Well, I would not if it got to the point where it was dangerous for them to go up and 
down stairs or- I do feel it's getting a little dangerous for my mother around the stove now. 
 
DOCTOR: You have been so used to taking care of other people, it must be tough for you to be 
taken care of now yourself. 
 
PATIENT: It's a bit of a problem. I have a mother who tries to help me, a mother who is more 
interested in her children than anything else in the world. That is not always the best thing too, 
because you should have other interests, you know. She has been entirely interested in her family. 
That's her life, sewing and doing little things for my sister who lives next door. I'm glad of that 
because my daughter can go over there. And 
 
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I'm very happy that my sister lives next door. So my mother goes over there and this is good for her 
too because it makes a little change for her. 
 
DOCTOR: It makes it easier for everybody. Mrs. C., can you tell us a little more about you. You 
said that this time you feel the weakest, that you have lost the most weight. When you are in bed, 
you know, lying there alone, what kind of things do you think about and what helps you most? 
 
PATIENT: Well, coming from the kind of family that I came from and my husband came from, we 
knew that if we started our marriage we had to have an outer strength besides ourselves. He was a 
Boy Scout leader and there had been marital problems between his father and mother who 
eventually separated. This was the second marriage for my father, he had three children. He 
married a very young waitress and that didn't work out at all. It was really pitiful, these little 
children were divided around, you know. They didn't come to live with my mother when he 
married my mother. My father was a very temperamental person, a very high-strung man with not a 
good disposition. And now I often wonder how did I cope with it. And so when we lived in that 
area my husband and I met each other in church. We were married. And we knew that to make our 
marriage we had to have outside strength. We've always felt that way. We've always been active in 
church work and I started teaching Sunday school when I was sixteen years old. They needed help 

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