The Grievance: A Real Life-and-Death Story
Description:
In the end will you or your hospital have control over your life?
The Grievance: A Real Life-and-Death Story is a deeply moving personal memoir - much of it in riveting real time - of a husband's cautionary tale of the whirlwind of circumstances, decisions and emotions surrounding the death of his vibrant wife whom he knew and loved for more than 50 years. Just 40 days earlier, she was playing tennis and bridge and doing yoga - then she was gone. She had a living will that specifically stated what medical procedures were not acceptable and it was handed to staff upon arrival at "The Hospital," one of the best teaching hospitals in New York City, where it languished in a loose-leaf binder.
Like Atul Gawande's New York Times bestseller Being Mortal and The Institute of Medicine's report Dying in America, readers will want to add The Grievance to the growing national conversation on end-of-life issues in America. Its intense personal perspective will engage and empower the average person in this very real life-and-death struggle. The experience has turned the author into a vocal advocate for patient choice and quality of life for the dying.
Anyone who has ever loved deeply will immediately be drawn in by the first chapter, the "Goodbye" of intimate and charming recollections, but it is the gripping, colorful real-time text messages between Abrams and his adult daughter, Meredith, and email exchanges with friends that will make readers stay as everyone (doctors and family alike) attempts to unravel the unusual circumstances of a rare disease that eventually takes Sandra Abrams' life.
The Grievance is a record of keen observations and anecdotes about our hospital system that doesn't seem to work as it should, of its humanity and its inhumanity, of our institutions and the knee-jerk reactions of a society still unable to handle death. It is the voice and warnings of someone who has "been there" for those who will be - all of us - if not for ourselves, for someone we love.
Abrams questions why end-of-life in America has to be so brutal and champions necessary change, providing the tools and resources for those who "wish to avoid well-engineered end-of-life traps." Abrams says, "Doctors are trained to save lives at almost any cost, supporting length of life, when they should be trained to support quality of life. The medical default position is to prolong life. The default system should be to honor a patient's choice first in an advance directive that is included in our electronic medical records."
Join the Conversation
Readers who wish to join the growing conversation on end-of-life issues in America are invited to go to the author's website, found inside the book, and share their reactions and experiences. With Medicare now deciding to fund end-of-life conversations, it is more important than ever that consumers know how to proceed in a thoughtful manner. Says Abrams, "Each person experiences death only once and, therefore, is a novice. Hospitals must do a better job in the way they honor and educate their patients and their families on the best way to die. To ignore their obligation 'to do no harm' violates the basic tenets on which the medical establishment was founded. Other nations have discovered how to provide their citizens dignity at the end-of-life. Why don't Americans have the courage to do so?"
The Grievance: A Real Life-and-Death Story is a deeply moving personal memoir - much of it in riveting real time - of a husband's cautionary tale of the whirlwind of circumstances, decisions and emotions surrounding the death of his vibrant wife whom he knew and loved for more than 50 years. Just 40 days earlier, she was playing tennis and bridge and doing yoga - then she was gone. She had a living will that specifically stated what medical procedures were not acceptable and it was handed to staff upon arrival at "The Hospital," one of the best teaching hospitals in New York City, where it languished in a loose-leaf binder.
Like Atul Gawande's New York Times bestseller Being Mortal and The Institute of Medicine's report Dying in America, readers will want to add The Grievance to the growing national conversation on end-of-life issues in America. Its intense personal perspective will engage and empower the average person in this very real life-and-death struggle. The experience has turned the author into a vocal advocate for patient choice and quality of life for the dying.
Anyone who has ever loved deeply will immediately be drawn in by the first chapter, the "Goodbye" of intimate and charming recollections, but it is the gripping, colorful real-time text messages between Abrams and his adult daughter, Meredith, and email exchanges with friends that will make readers stay as everyone (doctors and family alike) attempts to unravel the unusual circumstances of a rare disease that eventually takes Sandra Abrams' life.
The Grievance is a record of keen observations and anecdotes about our hospital system that doesn't seem to work as it should, of its humanity and its inhumanity, of our institutions and the knee-jerk reactions of a society still unable to handle death. It is the voice and warnings of someone who has "been there" for those who will be - all of us - if not for ourselves, for someone we love.
Abrams questions why end-of-life in America has to be so brutal and champions necessary change, providing the tools and resources for those who "wish to avoid well-engineered end-of-life traps." Abrams says, "Doctors are trained to save lives at almost any cost, supporting length of life, when they should be trained to support quality of life. The medical default position is to prolong life. The default system should be to honor a patient's choice first in an advance directive that is included in our electronic medical records."
Join the Conversation
Readers who wish to join the growing conversation on end-of-life issues in America are invited to go to the author's website, found inside the book, and share their reactions and experiences. With Medicare now deciding to fund end-of-life conversations, it is more important than ever that consumers know how to proceed in a thoughtful manner. Says Abrams, "Each person experiences death only once and, therefore, is a novice. Hospitals must do a better job in the way they honor and educate their patients and their families on the best way to die. To ignore their obligation 'to do no harm' violates the basic tenets on which the medical establishment was founded. Other nations have discovered how to provide their citizens dignity at the end-of-life. Why don't Americans have the courage to do so?"
Best prices to buy, sell, or rent ISBN 9780692440131
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