Showing posts with label Medicine Health Death and Dying. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Medicine Health Death and Dying. Show all posts

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Kevin Dayhoff Westminster Patch: Feeling Blue at the holidays – When in hole stop digging. @WestminstrPatch


Kevin Dayhoff Westminster Patch: Feeling Blue at the holidays – When in hole stop digging. @WestminstrPatch http://tinyurl.com/kdjykjo 

Feeling Blue at the holidays – When in hole stop digging.

(Some folks have been in touch looking for this article... Find it on Patch here: http://westminster.patch.com/groups/kevin-e-dayhoffs-blog/p/feeling-blue-at-the-holidays--when-in-hole-stop-digging

Sadly the holidays can also be a difficult time for folks who have suffered a personal loss in recent years. Especially if that personal loss occurred in the past year… Fortunately there are many resources in the community that are available to help
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Kevin Dayhoff is an artist - and a columnist for:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoffTwitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff
Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ = www.newbedfordherald.net

Tumblr: Kevin Dayhoff Banana Stems www.kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/
Smurfs: http://babylonfluckjudd.blogspot.com/
Google profile: https://profiles.google.com/kevindayhoff/

E-mail: kevindayhoff(at)gmail.com
My http://www.explorecarroll.com/ columns appear in the copy of the Baltimore Sunday Sun that is distributed in Carroll County: https://subscribe.baltsun.com/Circulation/
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Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Crossing the Creek, A Practical Guide to the Dying Process

“Crossing the Creek” is written by Michael Homes

http://www.slideshare.net/kevindayhoff/20000904-crossing-creek

I received “Crossing the Creek, A Practical Guide to the Dying Process” on the last day, November 13, 2013, of Bereavement Skills Training at Carroll Hospice. 




I recently took a 15-hour class in Bereavement Skills Training at Carroll Hospice, http://www.carrollhospice.org/Bereavement-Skills-Training taught by Kathleen A. Bare, M.S. Bereavement Counselor, Carroll Hospice, 292 Stoner Ave., Westminster, MD 21157.

The topics included an introduction to Carroll Hospice and the services and functions hospice can provide when family members, loved-ones, friends and colleagues are “Crossing the Creek.”

The class touched-upon the medical aspects of the dying experience and advice for caregivers. Class segments included ‘normal grief,’ natural grief responses, children and grief. Complicated grief, suicides, communication skills, rituals, support groups and resources.

On the last day of class, a member of the class distributed a photocopy of the publication, “Crossing the Creek, A Practical Guide to the Dying Process,” which the author, Michael Homes, RN, identifies as “A nurse’s perspective on the medical aspects of the dying experience and advice for caregivers.” My copy of “Crossing the Creek” is branded with a ‘print date’ of September 4, 2000.

According to http://crossingthecreek.com/, the publication is no longer available. Furthermore, the publisher, Damone-Rose Publishing is going out of business. A brief search of the internet did not locate a place where the book could be purchased. This information was accessed on November 25, 2013.

That is a shame because it is a valuable and well accepted plain-language and common sense approach to the dying experience and advice to caregivers…

In his introduction to “Crossing the Creek,” Mr. Holmes writes:

“This guide is intended to provide dying people and their caregivers with a general description of what they can expect to encounter. While understanding does not eliminate the impact of experience, it can: certainly reduce some of the consternation and allay that creeping sense of panic•.

“All transitions have similar key elements. Also, every person experiences, a wide variety of transitions during the course of his/her lifetime. In that sense, there is nothing new in dying process. In fact, each of us develops our own, personal style for dealing with transitions. We tend to stick with that style, whatever it might be, when we face the transition we call death.

“If you would like to know how you will handle your own death, look back upon your life and observe how you have handled all your other transitions. Unless you decide to change your approach, that is how you will die.

While all transitions have similar key elements, this guide deals specifically with the transition of dying. Every person does not experience every sign or symptom described herein, or a person may experience a particular sign or symptom in his/her own unique way. There is room for infinite variation in how any given individual may experience the dying process. At the same time, certain general themes are common to all.

“It is well to remember that all transitions entail some disagreeable or uncomfortable aspects. Dying process is no exception. No reasonable person expects that life will contain no discomforts, yet some espouse the notion that somehow, death will. This is not a reasonable expectation. The dying process has its difficult aspects regardless of one's level of enlightenment.

“Modern medicine has demonstrated a remarkable capacity for mitigating or even eliminating many disagreeable aspects of physical death. At the same time, modern medicine cannot relieve people of responsibility for their own lives. We all prepare for our own death by the manner in which we live our lives. Skilled clinicians can be a great help, but we each bear the ultimate burden of responsibility for how we live and how we die…”

For more information on grief, bereavement, death and dying, or coping with death at the holidays and the various programs offered by Carroll Hospice, contact: Kathleen A. Bare, M.S. Bereavement Counselor, Carroll Hospice, 292 Stoner Ave., Westminster, MD 21157, 410-871-7231, KBare@carrollhospitalcenter.org; or go to: http://www.carrollhospice.org/home.

Kevin Dayhoff is a chaplain with the Westminster Volunteer Fire Department and the Maryland Troopers Association Lodge # 20.

In addition he currently serves on the executive board of the Carroll Co. branch of the NAACP and the church council of Grace Lutheran Church.


In the past, he has taken a number of classes in various aspects of the chaplaincy, including non-violence training, emergency incident command and response, Red Cross disaster response training, and a Federation of Fire Chaplains’ class in the Essentials of Fire Chaplaincy…

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Kevin Dayhoff is an artist - and a columnist for:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoffTwitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff
Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ = www.newbedfordherald.net

Tumblr: Kevin Dayhoff Banana Stems www.kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/
Smurfs: http://babylonfluckjudd.blogspot.com/
Google profile: https://profiles.google.com/kevindayhoff/

E-mail: kevindayhoff(at)gmail.com
My http://www.explorecarroll.com/ columns appear in the copy of the Baltimore Sunday Sun that is distributed in Carroll County: https://subscribe.baltsun.com/Circulation/
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Sunday, November 24, 2013

Kevin Dayhoff - Soundtrack: Halloween: Gist worried about being forgotten, but...

By request, please enjoy: Kevin Dayhoff - Soundtrack: Halloween: Gist worried about being forgotten, but...: Halloween: Gist worried about being forgotten, but not quite gone October 28 th , 2007 by Kevin Dayhoff “Gist worried about bein...

Halloween: Gist worried about being forgotten, but not quite gone

October 28th, 2007 by Kevin Dayhoff

“Gist worried about being forgotten, but not quite gone” is one of my favorite Halloween stories among many.  I wrote it for the Sunday Eagle, under the working title of “Ghost Stories in Carroll County.”  It was published in the newspaper on October 28th, 2007.

Of the horror stories of Carroll’s yesteryear, none was greater than the very real fear of being buried alive.  In today’s world, society’s collective faith in the modern advances of the medical arts has gone a long way in alleviating the fear of being buried alive; a fear which was rampant in the 1800s.

A few years ago, local historian Jay Graybeal retold an account by Ruth Gist Pickens about the fear of being buried alive held by one of Carroll County’s most prominent citizens in the 1700s, Colonel Joshua Gist.

It seems that Colonel Gist maintained a coffin in a portion of his bedroom for the last years of his life; “into which he would have his personal servant lay him out and then call the family to comment on his appearance.  Each time he would ask them to promise not to bury him until the third day after his death.” …………  http://www.scribd.com/doc/39632160/Halloween-Gist-worried-about-being-forgotten-but-not-quite-gone

Halloween: Gist worried about being forgotten, but not quite gone                                                                                                                              
For more columns and articles by Kevin Dayhoff go to: http://www.explorecarroll.com/ and type Dayhoff into the search engine…

[20071028 Gist Worried About Being Forgotten KED SunEagle]

Ghosts, Halloween, Carroll County, Colonel Joshua Gist, Kevin Dayhoff,

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Kevin Dayhoff is an artist - and a columnist for:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoffTwitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ = www.newbedfordherald.net Tumblr: Kevin Dayhoff Banana Stems www.kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/ Smurfs: http://babylonfluckjudd.blogspot.com/ Google profile: https://profiles.google.com/kevindayhoff/ E-mail: kevindayhoff(at)gmail.com My http://www.explorecarroll.com/ columns appear in the copy of the Baltimore Sunday Sun that is distributed in Carroll County: https://subscribe.baltsun.com/Circulation/ +++++++++++++++