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Cover image of Living Well with a Serious Illness
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Living Well with a Serious Illness

A Guide to Palliative Care for Mind, Body, and Spirit

Robin Bennett Kanarek

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A practical guide for understanding how palliative care can improve quality of life for patients and their caregivers.

Robin Bennett Kanarek was a registered nurse working with patients suffering from chronic medical conditions when her ten-year-old son was diagnosed with leukemia. As her son endured grueling treatments, Robin realized how often medical professionals overlook critical psychological, emotional, and spiritual support for people with life-threatening illnesses. Living Well with a Serious Illness is the culmination of decades of Robin's work to advance the field of palliative care...

A practical guide for understanding how palliative care can improve quality of life for patients and their caregivers.

Robin Bennett Kanarek was a registered nurse working with patients suffering from chronic medical conditions when her ten-year-old son was diagnosed with leukemia. As her son endured grueling treatments, Robin realized how often medical professionals overlook critical psychological, emotional, and spiritual support for people with life-threatening illnesses. Living Well with a Serious Illness is the culmination of decades of Robin's work to advance the field of palliative care.

Although palliative care is often associated with hospice and end-of-life planning, Kanarek argues for a more expanded definition that incorporates palliative care earlier in patients' journeys. Living Well with a Serious Illness helps patients and their caregivers understand

• what palliative care entails
• how to access the support they need when going through a serious illness
• what questions to ask medical professionals
• how to navigate advanced care planning
• definitions of common terminology used with end-of-life planning
• the importance of spiritual care, coping strategies, and emotional support
• how to become an advocate for palliative care

This book illuminates the importance of seeing patients as individuals who can benefit from care for their body, mind, and spirit—the core tenet of palliative care.

Reviews

Reviews

Living Well With a Serious Illness is many things: the story of how the Kanarek family navigated the illness and death of their beloved son David, a guidebook for families and patients facing their own serious illness, and an accessible and timely description of palliative medicine's many benefits for everyone touched by illness and death. It is also a mother's loving tribute to her son, whose legacy will be, at least partially, the book you hold in your hands.

Robin's book is an impassioned plea to advance the availability, access, and use of palliative care services. This book fills a gap. Highly relevant and practical.

Robin Kanarek teaches us vital lessons on living life in this important book. We all have to face the fact of our inevitable death, but in the 'mean-while' we hopefully can live a life with meaning in the time we have.

This book is essential reading for anyone who will live with a serious illness or care for someone with one—which is essentially everyone. Kanarek writes as a mother who shares the loss of her son and has spent three decades sharing her experience with others to support their journeys. It is a book written from the heart and is both a practical guide as well as a deep reflection of how to navigate the challenging, and sacred, time of the end of life.

Robin Kanarek's personal story supports and comforts those who have experienced the sorrowful loss of a child. The expertise she synthesizes to catalyze palliative care and manage grief and loss provides a seminal guide to managing serious illness, for patients, families and healthcare communities.

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About

Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
5.5
x
8.5
Pages
224
ISBN
9781421445984
Table of Contents

Foreword by Sunita Puri, MD
Introduction: David's Story
1. What is Palliative Care?
2. Barriers to Palliative Care: Taking Care of the Person Versus Fighting the Disease
3. How We Want to Die: Palliative

Foreword by Sunita Puri, MD
Introduction: David's Story
1. What is Palliative Care?
2. Barriers to Palliative Care: Taking Care of the Person Versus Fighting the Disease
3. How We Want to Die: Palliative Care's Benefits for Patients and Their Loved Ones
4. How to Get the Care You Want: Knowing What to Ask For, What to Expect, and What to Demand
5. How to Cope When Illness Changes Everything: Quality-of-Life Care Includes the Family
6. Putting it All Together: Creating an Action Plan for When the End is Near
7. Spirituality and Well-Being: Care of the Spirit Matters Too
8. Grief: Tapping into Restorative Sources After Goodbye
9. Making Palliative Care Mainstream: What Legislators, Philanthropists, Educators, and You Can Do
Epilogue: David's Legacy—The Kanarek Family Foundation
Resources
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Index

Author Bio
Robin Bennett Kanarek
Featured Contributor

Robin Bennett Kanarek, RN

Robin Bennett Kanarek (GREENWICH, CT) is the president of the Kanarek Family Foundation, whose mission is to improve the quality of life for those affected by serious, life-threatening conditions through promoting, integrating, and educating about the medical industry and the public about palliative and supportive care in all areas of health care.