As many of you who follow my facebook page may know, I recently had one of my patients pass away. My patient was chronically disabled, and was prone to bouts of pneumonia.
When I assumed care of him in august 2012, we was expected to live only a few more weeks. He was socially withdrawn, had no energy, and took no joy in his previous hobbies. Under Quality naturopathic care (particularly an excellent homeopathic) he recovered his energy, zest for life, interest in the outside world, social interactions, and his joy.
He was able to stay outside his hospital until February 2013. At this point he got a mild pneumonia. I was actually leaving town for a small while. I visited my patient, and his mother in the hospital. He was being wonderfully cared for by the nurses and staff of the Foothills hospital. He was very happy, lucid, and looked to be doing wonderfully on IV antibiotics. I made some time to connect to the patient, held his hand for a while, then left, confident that he would receive the best care. Two days later the patients mother informed me of his death from viral pneumonia. He apparently had been lucid until the last several hours, when he lost consciousness, then rapidly passed on with his mother beside him.
In retrospect, I don’t really know why I made such an effort to connect to this patient in this visit. I fully expected to return and continue his treatment. Now I wonder if some part of me knew this would be our last visit together……
This has gotten me thinking. I remember my fathers death from cancer over about 5 months in 2008-2009, and the profound suffering and despair that process caused in dad, myself, and my family. I also have begun to revisit some of the older ethnographic accounts of death, in which very aged individuals simply do not wake up one day, or consciously make their transition ( such as in aboriginal australia).
I also began remembering a few accounts of palliative homeopathic care. Often in these cases, patients would approach a homeopathic physician when a patient was near death, and the proper administration of a remedy would often speed death up, and enable the patient to die in the fastest, least painful way possible. I also began remembering the account of a classmate of mine, who was treating a patient with end stage HIV/AIDS in africa. This patient had been on the verge of death for about 6 months. The administration of a well chosen homeopathic had permitted him to pass that night.
All these stories tend to lead me to a few ideas:
1. Death in a healthy society/culture is short, relatively rapid and painless after a long and healthy life.
2. The long and drawn out process of death that is so common in our culture is not healthy, or natural, but a reflection of profound illness.
3. Natural Medicine, and in particular Homeopathic medicine seem to return people in this society, at least somewhat, to that natural death process.
Im not intending to write a manifesto for Naturopathic Palliative care. I do not have the experience needed for that. But I am increasing convinced that such a thing is needed, and badly in North America. How badly do we need a return to natural modes of living, and how much more badly do we need a return to natural modes of dying when our last months are spent in agony, pain and terror.
I hope I live to see this.
Take care of Yourselves!
Dr Paul.
(P.S. I apologize for a lack of sources for this blog).