Customer Reviews

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

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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

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.

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.

My mother-in-law is dying of cancer and old age (she is 90). My mother is 88 and just moving from her home to an independent living apartment. I bought copies of this book both for myself and for my wife and siblings and all have given me feedback about how useful Brody's discussions and insights are. It is particularly useful concerning "the nitty gritty" concerning DNR and the variations on what DNR means, as well as on the symptoms exhibited during the last few months of life. I did not find everything useful or applicable, but for issues of concern to me and my family she provided very clear and very useful information. And I will certainly be re-drawing my own medical instructions to better address the issues she explicates. A useful and highly recommended book.

This should be required reading for everyone. There was so much I learned....so many things that I wouldn't have even thought to ask. This is a comprehensive book that would benefit every person sooner or later.
I am purchasing more copies of this book (as soon as it's out in paperback) for friends & relatives.

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 should be in every general-interest lending library or health collection: it comes from a health authority and covers everything from living wills and planning a memorial to discussing treatments with doctors, controlling pain, handling support systems such as hospice, and blending in spiritual concerns. A key acquisition and a 'must'.

This excellent book, well written and extremely practical, opens the door to conversations with loved ones about a topic many people don't like to talk about. I recommend it as the first book to read in planning for near end-of-life healthcare and eventual death. WARNING: Don't let the government and medical establishment make decisions for you!

I highly recommend this book. As usual, Brody brings her common sense, investigative skills and compassion to bear, this time on the most profound topic, one we will all face sooner or later.

Jane Brody

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

(New York: Random House, 2009) 287 pages
(ISBN: 978-1-4000-6654-4; hardback)
(Library of Congress call number: R726.2.B76 2009)

Well known as a food and health writer,
Jane Brody takes on a subject usually left to chance and tradition:
How will we face our own deaths?

This book is based on extensive reading
in many other books on each of the subjects discussed:
advance directives for medical care,
funerals or memorial services,
dealing with final diseases,
when we might be unconscious,
futile medical treatment,
locations for dying,
life-support systems,
managing pain,
hospice care,
religious issues at the end of life,
the deaths of children,
discussing impending death,
doctors who disappear when terminal care begins,
choosing death instead of waiting for the end,
dealing with the grief of losing a loved one,
organ and tissue donation,
autopsy,
what will we leave behind?

Jane Brody brings all of these issues within the grasp of ordinary readers.
No special expertise is needed for looking at any of the issues.
We will all benefit from following her advice.
And she gives many examples of people who did not prepare well for their deaths.

The title was probably selected by the publisher.
Nothing in this book deals with another realm beyond earthly life.
Even if there is no "Great Beyond",
we can all benefit from the wise preparations in this book
for dealing with everything that will happen in the last year of the life of each reader.
And even before we ourselves come to the end of our lives,
we will probably deal with at least a few other people who will die before us.

How prepared will we be for life to come to an end?

If you would like to know about other books
on preparing for death, search the Internet for:
"Best Books on Preparing for Death",
where you will find reviews of a dozen other books.

James Leonard Park, existential philosopher.

Very interesting book with many illuminating points for those of us who are aging towards the Great Beyond.