DYING, ILLNESS, AND AGING WITH GRACE

 
• Covid-19 (Coronavirus pandemic, 2020)
• You, your body, and your health
• Health care, medicine, and the health care system
• How we die (managing and honoring the end of life)
• Life, home, and estate management
• Justice and injustice
• Telling our life stories
• Wisdom and entertainment

Covid-19 (Coronavirus pandemic, 2020)

• COVID-19: politics and the stock market vs. science and survival (the good, the bad, and the ugly)
• Coronavirus: How to minimize your risks (the practical stuff)
• Recommended reading about pandemics (novels and nonfiction books and articles)
• Lost to the coronavirus pandemic
• On keeping a diary or journal of the pandemic
• Poems for the Pandemic
• 55+ things to do (listen, watch, read, share, do) during the pandemic
• How prepared are you for disaster?

You, your body, and your health

• Top sites for health news and advice
• Medical links for patients, families, and caregivers
• Where journalists get their medical news and information (Writers and Editors site)
• Do you trust your doctor? How can you protect yourself?
• Ratings for hospitals, doctors, surgeons, home health agencies, nursing homes
• You, drug-resistant superbugs, and what's for dinner?
• The flu: what you need to know
• Overcoming flu vaccine hesitancy: The caregiver's resource sheet
• We are what we eat? Read this, get healthy, feel better! (Part 1 of 2). See also Part 2 (with links to more good articles).
• Healthy food that isn't yucky
• Home remedies for relieving sciatica pain
• The truth (and controversy) about chronic (late-stage) Lyme disease
• Resources for finding service dogs, therapy dogs, and other types of assistance dogs

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Health care, medicine, and the health care system

• Why U.S. medical costs are so high -- and where the system needs fixing
• Taking the mystery out of health care prices
• Drugs, Big Pharma, conflicts of interest, and why U.S. patients pay too much for medication
• Ratings for hospitals, doctors, surgeons, home health agencies, nursing homes
• Doctors rebel against a re-certification test that costs $23,600 per doctor
• The anatomy of medical error Human factor scientists call skill-based errors slips and rule-based and knowledge-based errors mistakes. See also an Update on medical errors
• Exposing abuse and neglect in a chain of brain injury rehab centers
• Lead wars and the health of children
• Organizations serious about improving U.S. health care
• Talking points about the Affordable Care Act
• The NIH Clinical Center: A national healthcare treasure
• Nine great TED talks on improving health care

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How we die (managing and honoring the end of life)

• Preventing fraud, elder abuse, and guardianship problems
• Three cases for better management of dying
• Autopsies: when and why and how
• Farewell to T.L Hawkins, part 1 (October 2014)

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Three recent articles (by Michael Wolff, Joe Klein, and Sandra Tsing Loh) shed light on what it's like to be a caregiver for an elderly parent in today's U.S. health care system. Wolff's piece, A Life Worth Ending, searingly articulates the need for a support system that facilitates dying peacefully and without agony, instead of a system full of incentives for unnecessary medical interventions  Read More