Jane Brody's Guide to the Great Beyond: A Practical Primer to Help You and Your Loved Ones Prepare Medically, Legally, and Emotionally for the End of Life [Hardcover]

Jane Brody (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 17, 2009

From the beloved New York Times columnist, trusted authority on health, and bestselling author comes this complete guide to everything you need to know–emotionally, spiritually, and practically–to prepare for the end of life.

An invaluable road map to putting your affairs in order–or helping your loved ones do the same–this comprehensive book will answer every question you might have about what does and does not help smooth the transition between life and the Great Beyond. Wise, practical, and characteristically straightforward throughout, Brody advises on

• the intricacies of a well-thought-out (and fully spelled-out) living will that health care practitioners readily understand–and how to designate a health care proxy.
• planning a funeral or memorial to ensure your wishes are followed, including tips on how to reduce expenses.
• discussing prognoses and treatment options with doctors.
• your options for controlling pain, shortness of breath, bed sores, and other physical symptoms–plus the facts on feeding tubes.
• receiving the support you need through hospice care–and suggestions for loved ones and friends who want to help.
• lightening and enlightening your trials by incorporating spirituality into your life.
• understanding what happens, physically and mentally, when death is imminent, and recognizing when hand-holding and reassurance, not food or drink or an oxygen mask or CPR, is the proper course of action.
• easing your way through the journey of grief by admitting the reality of the loss, showing your emotions, and allowing yourself the time you feel you need.

No matter your age or current health, preparing for the inevitable when you are still fully in control of your faculties ensures that you’ll be in a far better position to enjoy the time you have left. As Brody notes, “From the start, consider the finish.”

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In her inimitably straightforward, informative and intelligent manner, New York Times health columnist Brody (Jane Brodys Good Food Book) gives pragmatic direction to a concerned yet reluctant readership in this essential travel guide for the journey toward the inevitable. In pointing out that there is a difference between sensibly learning to accept death and surrendering, she reminds us that our attitude about living colors our approach to death. Thoroughly outlining all attendant demands and details for facing ones end, Brody provides facts and support for families and patients, and makes it appear entirely possible to go with grace. With bulleted lists itemizing what needs to be done and how to do it, short portraits and anecdotes throughout, Brody covers the importance of preparation; the necessity of an advance directive and why a living will is not enough; funeral plans; living with a bad prognosis and dealing with uncertainty; caregiving; hospice; communicating with doctors; assisted dying; organ donation and autopsy; and legacies. An instructive, inspiring and reassuring work full of compassion and humor (along with several cartoons from various New Yorker illustrators), this volume belongs on every familys bookshelf. (Jan.)
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Review

Advance praise for Jane Brody’s Guide to the Great Beyond

“We’re all going to die some day, so we might as well do it right. Jane Brody, a master of information and storytelling, does that in her wonderful and enjoyable new book. This is for everyone who doesn’t like the subject–and for everyone else as well. ”
–Betty Rollin, author of Last Wish and Here’s the Bright Side

“Jane Brody teaches us how to go smartly into the good night, holding our loved one’s hands, heads held high.”
–Dan Shapiro, Ph.D., Arnold P. Gold Professor of Medical Humanism, Penn State College of Medicine

“I didn’t think it could be done, but then Jane Brody has always accomplished the impossible–she has demystified and given us real control over the thing we fear the most. This book is a gift to all her fellow humans.”
–Diane E. Meier, M.D., director, Center to Advance Palliative Care, Mount Sinai School of Medicine

“This is more than a ‘primer.’ It is a must-read for anyone dealing with his or her own end-of-life issues or those of a loved one. Brody leads us on a journey we would rather not take by explaining things we would rather not think about –with compassion, caring, and an understanding that death is an inevitable part of life for which we must prepare.”
–William D. Novelli, CEO, AARP

“At long last we have a comprehensive, humane book about end-of-life care. This is not a ‘pop’ book but rather a thoughtful, science-based, honest discussion of a topic people want to avoid–and do so at their own risk. While it is facile to speak of a ‘good death’ it is all too easy to mis-plan and end up experiencing a bad one.”
–Robert N. Butler, M.D., president and CEO, International Longevity Center

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1 edition (February 17, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400066549
• ISBN-13: 978-1400066544
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.1 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #128,515 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A clear-eyed look at death and dying, February 24, 2009

By 

Julie Neal (Sanibel Island, Fla.) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jane Brody's Guide to the Great Beyond: A Practical Primer to Help You and Your Loved Ones Prepare Medically, Legally, and Emotionally for the End of Life (Hardcover)

Jane Brody has written many sensible books on improving the quality of life. Now she has added to that list with a book about improving the quality of death.

The subhead says it all: A practical primer to help you and your loved ones prepare medically, legally, and emotionally for the end of life. This book is full of invaluable advice that anyone can use, whatever their age. Death is the end of the story for everybody, so it makes excellent sense to learn about it and make decisions. The better your plan, the better likelihood the end of life will be the one you'd pick.

The tone of the Guide to the Great Beyond is compassionate and upbeat. Although there is plenty of science and hard-nosed legal advice, there are also cartoons and personal vignettes. I liked one cartoon in particular. A doctor stands in front of a patient and says "Before I go over your test results, can we agree no one lives forever?"

Included is a six-page prototype of a living will that readers can copy for their own use.

Other good books by this author include Jane Brody's Good Food Book, Jane Brody's Nutrition Book, Jane Brody's Good Food Gourmet, Jane Brody's Good Seafood Book and Jane Brody's Allergy Fighter.

Here's the chapter list:

Preface
Prologue: End-of-Life Issues Are Not New for Me

Part 1: Get Ready Now For the Great Beyond
1. Death is Inevitable: So Be Prepared
2. A Good Death: There's More Than One Right Way to Die
3. Advance Directives: A Living Will Is Not Enough
Box: Medical Living Will with Code Status Advance Directive
4. Funeral? Memorial? Why Plan Ahead for the End
Box: Back-to-Nature Burials

Part 2: Charting a Course to the End of Life
5. Uncertain Future: Living With a Bad Prognosis
6. Coma: When the Brain Is on Hold
7. Living Well to the End: Where and How
8. Caregiving: Tending Someone at the End of Life
9. Hospice and Palliative Care: Don't Wait Until It's Too Late
Box: A Hospice Doctor Finds Joy
10. Spiritual Care: Lighten and Enlighten and End-of-Life Journey
11. When a Child Is Dying: Surviving the Nightmare
Box: A Mother Recalls Her Baby's Last Day
12. What to Say: Conversations at the End of Life
Box: Improving Doctor-Patient Communication
Box: Communicating With Hope
13. Doctors Who Disappear: What Can Be Done About It
14. Assisted Dying: What to Consider When Illness Is Unbearable
Box: The Oregon Death With Dignity Act
Box: If You Are a Physician
15. Grief: It's Not a Disease

Part 3: Life After Death: What You Leave Behind Counts
16. Organ and Body Donations: A Gift of Life
Box: Your Wishes About Organ and Tissue Donation
17. Autopsy: Valuable Lessons from the Dead
18. Lasting Legacies: Leave Memories and Life Lessons

Epilogue: From the Start Consider the Finish

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Starred review from Publishers Weekly, February 28, 2009

By 

Erik Engquist (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jane Brody's Guide to the Great Beyond: A Practical Primer to Help You and Your Loved Ones Prepare Medically, Legally, and Emotionally for the End of Life (Hardcover)

Here's the starred review from Publishers Weekly (January 2009):

In her inimitably straightforward, informative and intelligent manner, New York Times health columnist Brody (Jane Brody's Good Food Book) gives pragmatic direction to a concerned yet reluctant readership in this essential travel guide for the journey toward the inevitable. In pointing out that there is a difference between sensibly learning to accept death and surrendering, she reminds us that our attitude about living colors our approach to death. Thoroughly outlining all attendant demands and details for facing one's end, Brody provides facts and support for families and patients, and makes it appear entirely possible to "go with grace." With bulleted lists itemizing what needs to be done and how to do it, short portraits and anecdotes throughout, Brody covers the importance of preparation; the necessity of an advance directive and why a living will is not enough; funeral plans; living with a bad prognosis and dealing with uncertainty; caregiving; hospice; communicating with doctors; assisted dying; organ donation and autopsy; and legacies. An instructive, inspiring and reassuring work full of compassion and humor (along with several cartoons from various New Yorker illustrators), this volume belongs on every family's bookshelf.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good death | Guide to the Great Beyond, April 5, 2009

By 

Jeanne M. Hannah (Traverse City, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Jane Brody's Guide to the Great Beyond: A Practical Primer to Help You and Your Loved Ones Prepare Medically, Legally, and Emotionally for the End of Life (Hardcover)

I have just finished reading this extraordinary book, a book so remarkable that I am making a list of all of the people with whom I will share it.

Most people my age have experienced many losses in their life. For me, those losses have included my grandparents, parents, and my dear sister Kay who died of cancer at the age of 47. Many of the vignettes and insights shared by Jane Brody resonated with me. Brody shared her personal experience of her mother dying in 1958 of complications of ovarian cancer only weeks before Brody graduated from high school. What she described was not much different from the experience of my nephew Kris and my niece Trisha. More than ten years after Kay's death, Kris said to me, "Aunt Jeannie, I don't understand why you knew that Mom was dying and no one even told us." It wasn't that Kris and Trisha weren't right there. It's that no one, not even Kay, could or would admit that she was dying. Had she told me? No. I only knew because I was in daily communication with Kay and my intuition picked up on what was not said to me. Brody encourages me to believe that we can and should learn to talk about death openly.

Brody's wise advice and advocacy is reflected in this note: "From the start, consider the finish." Her comment reminds me of an old saying: "Nobody gets out of here alive." That is not to say that Brody destroys the idea of hope. In fact, she advises hope with a healthy dose of reality. Brody has provided a wonderful guide to help families negotiate the pitfalls from a time of diagnosis through those inevitable experiences of grief. Her advocacy for palliative and hospice care and the idea of dying what I would call "a good death" provides valuable help for those who are living with a fatal illness, as well as for their family members and caregivers.

Brody's "voice" provides not just a guide to compassionate care but also a helpful hand to family and caregivers who want to say the right thing and do the right thing when helping loved ones toward the great beyond. Brody writes hopefully about death, saying, "You've got time." Preparing for death and mending fences can provide great comfort for a dying person. Brody shares personal stories about friends and family that help the reader face a terminal illness with realism and prepare for death with hope, compassion and even humor. New Yorker cartoons disarm the reader throughout the book. This comic relief is a tasteful and healing ingredient in dealing with such a painful and frightening topic. Brody provides checklists of things that patients and family members may want to ask doctors and nurses that make this book practical and very useful.

As one who frequently tells clients that "Knowledge is power," what impresses me the most about Brody's book is that she provides readers with a sense of empowerment that encourages the reader not just to take charge of our health but also to take charge of our dying.

The gift Brody shares in her book can help parents prepare their children for death and lead them to healing of grief. A road map guiding people to put their affairs in order, to designate a health care proxy, to plan a funeral or memorial service can ease a dying person's concerns about his or her wishes being carried out, about pain being controlled, and about children not being burdened by having to make decisions that they are, perhaps, ill-prepared to make.