Our Final Moments

Hospice is an emotionally charged word for some people. But what is it? What do they do? Where do they do it? Whaat services do they provide? And more importantly, what services do they not provide? Who pays for it? These questions and more, answered in The Hospice Episode.

In this episode, we talk about what palliative care is, what it isn't, and why it isn't the same as hospice. We debunk myths about palliative care - who it's for, and what you do (and more importantly don't) have to do to receive it, so you can decide if it's time to have your own palliative team. Whether you're living with cancer, getting treatment, not getting treatment, have other life-limiting illnesses or you're in survivorship, palliative care may be a good option for you.

In this episode, we dive into medical surrogates (AKA powers of attorney/POAs, medical decision makers) - what are they, what are they not, why you need one, why you technically already have one, and how to pick one. Then, we talk about how to ask someone to be your POA. This is definitely a longer and meatier episode, so feel free to listen to the first half (what a POA is and why you need one) and the second half (how to choose your POA and ask them to do that for you) in two bits if that feels good to you.

This is a brief minisode to answer a listener question about how your expressions to loved ones and will relate, and what happens when the people around you want something different than what you do. In "this episode" refers to the next episode about power of attorneys and medical surrogacy.

On this episode we discuss the core of how to make difficult decisions: values. It's incredibly hard and can be heart wrenching to make decisions about things like feeding tubes, how long to do chemo, or when to go on hospice. This episode lays a foundation for how these decisions get made by creating a framework that you can use practically, so that these hard decisions are a little bit easier.

In this episode, we talk about theories of death and dying: when does dying start? When is someone considered dead, and why is do people disagree about what death is - and as a result, what life is? This episode is great fodder for coffee table discussion, and may help you decide for yourself what is means to live, and what it means to die.

This intro is what it sounds like - an intro! In about 5 minutes, Dr. Mitchell explains the purpose of the podcast, plans for episodes, and what listeners can expect from the unofficial field guide to death and dying.