I investigated death and dying from a medical, clinical and academic perspective. By using classic texts by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, William Worden and John Canine I was able to examine the field of thanatology from a medical, academic and clinical perspective, respectively. Reading the texts side by side helped me to clearly see the weaknesses and strengths of each approach. For example, I was able to clearly see the strong influence of Freud in the attitudes towards death in both the medical and academic communities. Also, I found that the medical community focused much more heavily on the process leading up to death, while the clinical perspective dealt almost entirely with the grieving process that occurs after a death. The textbooks were easy to obtain online

via MLX Package #2014: Investigative Techniques into the Understanding of Death and Dying.

Keeping this for the three text refs.

Comparisons

(Slaps Forehead)

How could I have _missed_ “The Inferno” by Dante?
Gonna have to see if that journey looks anything like the Tibetan one.

I read that back when I was probably 20 years old…

Anyway– (makes a note)  ”The Inferno”… might be one of the guide books that goes into the heap.

The notion of “How” we transition into “over there” keeps returning to “Where did you say you were from?  Oh, well in that case, here is your vocabulary… this time you get a cave, not a tunnel.”

Onward,
X.

The stretchability of a whole chicken is a frequently discussed topic among food and frugality bloggers. It’s commonly accepted that a single fowl will feed a family of 11 for weeks, years – even millennia.

via 1 Chicken, 17 Healthy Meals, $26 Bucks, No Mayo.

Mmmm.  Food things.

Among parents studied, one in eight, or 13 percent, said they had considered asking about ending their child’s life, and 9 percent said they had that discussion with caregivers. Parents of five children said they had explicitly requested euthanasia for their dying children, and parents of three said it had been carried out, with morphine.

Dr. Susan Sencer, a cancer specialist who did not take part in the study, said in a text message that doctors will often tell parents this when dying children are suffering: ” ‘To alleviate pain and suffering we may need to increase the narcotics; increasing the narcotics may result in respiratory depression, which may hasten death,’ so that they are aware of the trade-off.”

via Nation & World | Parents say doctors hastening deaths of dying children | Seattle Times Newspaper.

So that’s how you do it.
It’s not euthanasia, it’s incidental respiratory depression as a side effect of pain management.
Yeah.  Got it.
Ya still gotta die in a horrible place, but perhaps not. The hospice folks are on that–that’s changing.
Now to find out what sort of counseling you get when you are 9 years old and you need to grieve your own death.
Who guides our Hero’s Journey?
Is it wrong to ask physicians to do it?
Do we need another class of Doctor?  It’s not about when, it’s about How.
X

Dr. Tom Preston, a retired cardiologist and volunteer medical director for Compassion & Choices, says patients should skip the euphemisms, and — in private — ask their doctor a yes-or-no question now: “If I become terminally ill, will you prescribe life-ending medication for me under the Death with Dignity Act?

“Any answer other than “yes” means “no,” says Robb Miller, the group’s executive director. “You must know, so you don’t waste time. I’m not saying change physicians; I’m just saying: Know where your physician stands.”

via Local News | Why some couldn’t die on their own terms | Seattle Times Newspaper.

This whole article is quite useful.  You can’t look at how Tibetans write about dying, or Mayans or Egyptians or Indians, without looking at your own country too.

FORA.tv – Death Experiences: Stan Grof and Scott Eberle.

Starting a new Tag, Death.

I’m putting this marker here because I’m reading a new translation of “The Tibetan Book of the Dead.”  This has expanded into a study of the NDE, and a study of current concepts in death and dying in America, and revisiting the “Death with Dignity” movement.  I seem to be sticking to this subject for a while so I’m going to make a record of the stuff that influences my thinking, here.

This video is in multiple short sections, but it is very, very long.  Grof is a fairly cool guy and I keep meaning to read more of him.  This reminds me to look into his holotropic breath work, and reminds me that in 50 years we actually have improved the death experience in this country.  It could be worse.  It could be 1960.

I think probably there’s going to be another thread on entheogens, too.  It’s no coincidence to me that we started moving forward in roughly the same year that legal hallucinogens were hitting the street.

I don’t know where I’m going.  I’m reading a book.  I’m looking at why we in this culture are still fascinated by a book written 800 years ago in a remote place and a completely different language.  It’s because we don’t have our own.  It’s because we’ve made death as foreign and remote as Tibet.

Soon the HBO movie “You Don’t Know Jack” (about Jack Kevorkian) will be out, with Al Pacino playing the good doctor.  I’ll probably mention that too.

I’m in no hurry to try out dying, but I’d like to organize my thinking on the matter.

Grama turns 100 this June.

She has tried to talk to mom but mom won’t listen–really avoids the topic.  So grama doesn’t have the kind of closure and preparation she would like.  And that means that when mom is where Grama is now, that obstruction to working through this is gonna make it that much harder for me, too.    I can’t blame her for being in pain but I can try to stay mindful about the death experience.

So I’ll blog it.

Scientists identify new approaches to treating PTSD.

Researchers believe that PTSD occurs when the brain’s system for regulating stress overloads to the point where it can no longer revert to a normal state, even after the cause of the stress disappears. Particularly affected is the amygdala, which is one of the critical structures in the brain related to  and , and in particular to fear-related learning and memory.

“What we found were that genes that are known to be involved in excitation and inhibition changed their expression three weeks after stress,” says Ponomarev. “The overall result is an amygdala that’s unable to normally respond to stressors.”

…particular DNA sequences may prove significant, says Ponomarev, because they seem to be involved in, or indicative of, a process known as “chromatin remodeling,” which helps determine which genes are or are not expressed in a given cell. It’s precisely this process that seems to be responsive to the HDAC inhibitors.

Vitamin cocktail found to extend youthfulness in mice.

The “cocktail” fed to the mice included vita­mins B1, C, D, E, acetylsalicylic acid, beta carotene, folic acid, garlic, ginger root, ginko biloba, ginseng, green tea extract, magnesium, melatonin, potassium, cod liver oil, and flax seed oil. The ingredients were combined based on their ability to off-set five mechanisms involved in aging, said the re­searchers, from McMaster University in Canada.


Ingredients consists of items that were purchased in local stores selling vitamin and health supplements for people, including vitamins B1, C, D, E, acetylsalicylic acid, beta carotene, folic acid, garlic, ginger root, ginkgo biloba, ginseng, green tea extract, magnesium, melatonin, potassium, cod liver oil, and flax seed oil. Multiple ingredients were combined based on their ability to offset five mechanisms involved in ageing.

via Researchers find formula that forestalls aging.

PhysOrg.com — Spray-on liquid glass is transparent, non-toxic, and can protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections. The coating is also flexible and breathable, which makes it suitable for use on an enormous array of products.

via Spray-on liquid glass is about to revolutionize almost everything.

I’ve been waiting for this for more than 10 years, and I want to own stock in Nanopool.

A movement is growing quietly, steadily, and with great speed. In basements, attics, garages, and living rooms, amateurs and professionals alike are moving steadily towards disparate though unified goals. They come home from work or school and transform into biologists: do-it-yourself biologists, to be exact.

via DIY Bio: A Growing Movement Takes on Aging | h+ Magazine.

These people leave me in their dust, yet I feel that I am one of them.

Diabetics could soon be weeping tears of joy over a new noninvasive technology that would make the ritual of drawing blood throughout the day ancient history. A biochemical engineer at the University of Western Ontario has developed contact lenses that change color in response to spikes and dips in the wearer’s glucose levels. The secret: Ultra-teeny nanoparticles that react chemically with glucose molecules in tears to produce a shift in hue.

via Color-Changing Contact Lenses Help Diabetics Keep Tabs on Glucose Levels | Ecouterre.

Now THIS is a game changer.  How fast can they get it to market?

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