Knocking on Heaven's Door The Path to a Better Way of Death
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<b><b>“A thoroughly researched and compelling mix of personal narrative and hard-nosed reporting that captures just how flawed care at the end of life has become” (Abraham Verghese,<i> </i><i>T</i><i>he New York Times</i> <i>Book Review</i>).</b></b><br><br>This bestselling memoir—hailed a “triumph” by <i>The New York Times</i>—ponders the “Good Death” and the forces within medicine that stand in its way.<br> <br>Award-winning journalist Katy Butler was living thousands of miles from her aging parents when the call came: her beloved seventy-nine-year-old father had suffered a crippling stroke. Katy and her mother joined the more than 28 million Americans who are shepherding loved ones through their final declines.<br> <br>Doctors outfitted her father with a pacemaker, which kept his heart going while doing nothing to prevent a slide into dementia, near-blindness, and misery. When he said, “I’m living too long,” mother and daughter faced wrenching moral questions. Where is the line between saving a life and prolonging a dying? When do you say to a doctor, “Let my loved one go?”<br> <br>When doctors refused to disable the pacemaker, condemning her father to a lingering death, Butler set out to understand why. Her quest had barely begun when her mother, faced with her own grave illness, rebelled against her doctors, refused open-heart surgery, and met death the old-fashioned way: head-on.<br> <br>Part memoir, part medical history, and part spiritual guide, <i>Knocking on Heaven’s Door </i>is a map through the labyrinth of a broken medical system. Technological medicine, obsessed with maximum longevity, is creating more suffering than it prevents. Butler chronicles the rise of Slow Medicine, a movement bent on reclaiming the “Good Deaths” our ancestors prized. In families, hospitals, and the public sphere, this visionary memoir is<i> </i>inspiring the difficult conversations we must have to light the path to a better way of death.<br> <br><i>“</i>A lyrical meditation written with extraordinary beauty and sensitivity” (<i>San Francisco Chronicle</i>).
Knocking on Heaven's Door The Path to a Better Way of Death Katy Butler
Details
<b><b>“A thoroughly researched and compelling mix of personal narrative and hard-nosed reporting that captures just how flawed care at the end of life has become” (Abraham Verghese,<i> </i><i>T</i><i>he New York Times</i> <i>Book Review</i>).</b></b><br><br>This bestselling memoir—hailed a “triumph” by <i>The New York Times</i>—ponders the “Good Death” and the forces within medicine that stand in its way.<br> <br>Award-winning journalist Katy Butler was living thousands of miles from her aging parents when the call came: her beloved seventy-nine-year-old father had suffered a crippling stroke. Katy and her mother joined the more than 28 million Americans who are shepherding loved ones through their final declines.<br> <br>Doctors outfitted her father with a pacemaker, which kept his heart going while doing nothing to prevent a slide into dementia, near-blindness, and misery. When he said, “I’m living too long,” mother and daughter faced wrenching moral questions. Where is the line between saving a life and prolonging a dying? When do you say to a doctor, “Let my loved one go?”<br> <br>When doctors refused to disable the pacemaker, condemning her father to a lingering death, Butler set out to understand why. Her quest had barely begun when her mother, faced with her own grave illness, rebelled against her doctors, refused open-heart surgery, and met death the old-fashioned way: head-on.<br> <br>Part memoir, part medical history, and part spiritual guide, <i>Knocking on Heaven’s Door </i>is a map through the labyrinth of a broken medical system. Technological medicine, obsessed with maximum longevity, is creating more suffering than it prevents. Butler chronicles the rise of Slow Medicine, a movement bent on reclaiming the “Good Deaths” our ancestors prized. In families, hospitals, and the public sphere, this visionary memoir is<i> </i>inspiring the difficult conversations we must have to light the path to a better way of death.<br> <br><i>“</i>A lyrical meditation written with extraordinary beauty and sensitivity” (<i>San Francisco Chronicle</i>).