chemotherapy Archives - Page 2 of 2

Maybe Palliative Care SHOULD Go to the Dogs

By Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN interim editor-in-chief

Last week, we took Sam, our ailing 14-year-old Labrador Retriever, on what became his last trip to the vet. Sam had been diagnosed with bone cancer in February after we noticed the right half of his head enlarging. Because of where the tumor was, it was inoperable. We felt that at his age chemotherapy wasn’t a realistic option, and we didn’t want the last few months of his life to be bad ones.

His veterinarian, who’d treated Sam since his puppy days, supported the decision, saying she would make the same choice for her dog. And so we spent the last few months adjusting doses of steroids and pain meds to enable him to live as normally as possible. For Sam, “normal” was being able to greet all comers to our door, to be the leader on his walks, to be smack in the middle of where his family was. (If people were in the basement and on the second floor, he would lie equidistant from where everyone in the house was. If we were in the same room, he sat, front legs crossed in his “elegant dog” pose, where he could see us all.)

So last month, when we saw that he would no longer get up to greet visitors or his family; was reluctant to go on walks (he did, but with a great sigh and lots of panting after even the shortest […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:15:45-05:00September 13th, 2010|Nursing|6 Comments

Taking A Stand Against Terminal Illness — Self-Delusion, or the ‘Good Fight’?

By Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN interim editor-in-chief

This week, The New York Times published an article about a young palliative care specialist who, when advised her cancer had progressed to the point where she should consider palliative care, rejected the notion and proceeded to pursue all available options. She was only 40 years old and said she was not ready to die. While the aggressive treatments (which she had plenty of money to pursue) gave her about another year, the article explains that her final days were spent heavily medicated for pain from the tumors throughout her body—even as she continued to request brutally painful procedures with little chance of prolonging her life.

That was her choice, and she knew what she was choosing. But that doesn’t always happen; too often, people really don’t know what it may cost them to take a stand against the inevitable. (For an engaging and comprehensive look at the issue and its implications for nurses, see Life Support Interventions at the End of Life: Unintended Consequences in the January issue of AJN.)

This month, AJN’s Reflections essay describes a scenario when full disclosure of the likely results of pursuing treatment wasn’t forthcoming from health providers. It tells of one nurse’s dilemma in balancing her role as family member and as a nurse during the last days of her […]