Microsoft Word Elisabeth Kubler-Ross On Death And Dying doc

in the nursery so I did it and I enjoyed it. I taught up until I had the two older boys. I enjoyed it and 
I often gave devotions in my church and told them what my church meant to me. What my God 
meant to me, so I think you just don't throw that all overboard when something happens. You go on 
believing, you know that whatever happens, will happen. 
 
DOCTOR: That's something that helps you now too? 
 
PATIENT: Yes. And when my husband and I talk we know we both feel the same way. As I told 
Chaplain C., we know that we could never be tired with other people talking about it. I told him 
also our love is as strong now after twenty-nine years 
 
of marriage as it was when we were married. This is another thing that means a lot to me. We have 
been able, with all our problems, to face them. He's a wonderful man, a very wonderful man! 
 
Doctor: You dealt with your problems courageously and well, the hardest perhaps being your son? 
 
PATIENT: We did the best we could. I don't think it's just an opportunity for any parent. You just 
don't know how to quite deal with it. You think it's stubbornness at first, you just don't know. 
 
DOCTOR: How old was he when you noticed that he had a problem? 
 
PATIENT: Well, you find it quite obvious. They don't ride a tricycle and do not do all the other 
things that children do. But actually, a mother doesn't want to accept these things. She will find 
other explanations at first. 
 
DOCTOR: How long did it take you? 
 
PATIENT: Up to my age, but actually when he got into school, into kindergarten, he was a problem 
to the teacher. He often stuck something into his mouth to attract attention. I began to get reports 
from the teacher, then I knew definitely that we had a problem with him. 
 
DOCTOR: So you accepted the full facts step by step just as you did with the diagnosis of leukemia. 
What kind of people in the hospital help you the most with your daily problems? 
 
PATIENT: Every time you run across a nurse who expresses faith, it's a big help. As I say, when I 
went down to that X-ray yesterday I felt just sort of like a number, you know, and there wasn't 
anybody who cared very much, especially when I went down the second time. It was late and they 
were disturbed that they would send a patient down there that late. So they were disturbed all the 
way around. I knew when she brought me, she was going to put that wheelchair there and disappear, 
and I'd sit there until someone came out. But one of the girls there told her she shouldn't do that, 
she should go in and tell them I was there and have them come out. I think she was upset having to 
go that late with a patient. They were closing 
 
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up, the technicians were going home and it was late. Little things like this, you know, the 
cheerfulness of the nurses would help so much. 

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DOCTOR: What do you think of people who have no faith? 
 
PATIENT: Well, I run across that, too. I run across that with patients here, too. There was a 
gentleman who was here last time and when he found out what I had he said, "I can't understand, 
nothing fair in this world, why should you have leukemia, you've never smoked, you never drank, 
you never did anything like that," you know. He said, "Me, I'm an old man, I did a lot of things I 
never should have done." It doesn't make any difference. We are not told that we will never have 
any problems. Our Lord himself had terrific problems to face, so he's the one who teaches us and I 
am trying to follow him. 
 
DOCTOR: Do you ever think about dying? 
 
PATIENT: Do I think about it? 
 
DOCTOR: Yes. 
 
PATIENT: Yes, I do. I oftentimes think about dying. I don't like the idea of everybody coming to 
see me because I look so awful. Why does that have to happen? Why can't they just have a little 
memorial service? You know, I don't like the idea of funerals, you know, maybe that's strange. I 
just have a repulsion, my body in that casket. 
 
DOCTOR: I am not sure I understand. 
 
PATIENT: I don't like to make people unhappy, like my children, by two or three days of this sort 
of thing, you know. I thought about that and have done nothing about it. My husband asked me one 
day when he came in; he said, shall we actually look into this, donating our eyes or donating our 
bodies? We didn't do it that day, and we still haven't done it because it's one of those things you put 
off, you know. 
 
DOCTOR: Do you ever talk with anybody about it? Kind of preparing yourself for that time 
whenever it comes? 
 
PATIENT: Well, as I told Chaplain C., I think for many people there is such a need to lean on 
somebody, to talk to the chaplain and they want all the answers from him. 
 
DOCTOR: And does he give them the answers? 
 
PATIENT: I think if you understand Christianity, by the time you 
 
reach my age you should be mature enough to know that you can reach out and have this yourself 
because you are going to be by yourself a great many hours. You are alone in illness, because 
people just can't be with you all the time. You can't have the chaplain with you, you can't have your 
husband with you, you can't have people with you. My husband is the kind of person who would be 
with me as much as he could. 
 
DOCTOR: It helps then most to have people with you? 

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PATIENT: Oh, yes, especially certain people. 
 
DOCTOR: Who are the certain people? You mentioned the chaplain, your husband. 
 
PATIENT: Yes. I enjoy having my pastor coming to visit with me, from my church. There was 
another young friend of mine about the same age as I am and she's a very fine Christian. She has 
lost the sight of her eyes. She was in the hospital for several months flat on her back. She accepted 
it very well. She is the type of person that is forever doing something for somebody else. If they are 
ill she is visiting them, or she is collecting clothes for the poor or something like that. She wrote me 
a nice letter the other day and she quoted the 139th Psalm and I really enjoyed getting that. She said, 
"I wanted you to know you are one of my closest friends." So you look for a person like that and it 
makes you happy. It's the little things that make you happy. As a whole I think they are very 
friendly here now. I think I'm a little bit tired, though, about hearing people suffer in the rooms. I 
hear this and I think, oh, why can't they do something for that person, you know. It's been going on 
for a long time and you hear them crying out and you fear that maybe they are alone. You have no 
right to go to their room and talk to them, you just hear them, you know. This sort of thing bothers 
me. The first time I was here I couldn't sleep too well and I thought about it. I thought, well, this 
can't go on. You're just going to have to get your sleep. So I slept quite well. But I heard two 
patients crying out that night. It is a thing I hope that I never do. I had a cousin who had cancer not 
long ago and she was older than I. She was a very wonderful person. She was crippled from birth 
but she handled it just beautifully. She was in the hospital for a great 
 
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many months, she never cried out. The last time I visited her was a week before she died. She was a 
real inspiration. She really was because she was more concerned about me for making the trip over 
to see her than she was about herself. 
 
DOCTOR: That's the kind of woman you would like to be, hm? 
 
PATIENT: Well, she helped me. I hope I can do it. 
 
DOCTOR: I am sure you can. You have been doing it right here today. 
 
PATIENT: I have one more thing that worries me-one never knows when they get in an 
unconscious state like that how they are going to react. Sometimes they react differently. I guess it 
is important that you have confidence in your doctor then, that he can stay with you. Dr. E. is very 
busy so you just don't talk much with him. Unless he would ask you, you wouldn't bring up a lot of 
family problems or anything, although I have always felt how much of a bearing do these things 
have on my health. You know very well that problems can have quite a bearing on our physical 
health. 
 
CHAPLAIN: That's what you implied the other day that you wondered if the pressures of your 
family and all the problems there affected your health too. 
 

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