Farewell

How long am I going to live? Who will be with me when I die? Will my family forgive me? Will I have pain?—are among the 31 vital end-of-life questions patients and their families ask. This book is about navigating those last days, at the bedside, and saying farewell with hope, love, and compassion.

Dr. Edward Creagan provides the reassuring answers patients and families deserve. He has dedicated his life to death. For over forty winters at the Mayo Clinic he has been at the bedside with more than 40,000 patient encounters in the last stages of their lives on this earth. Held the hands of family members. Prayed with them. Listened. 

This book addresses

•Making end-of-life decisions when Mom or Dad or a loved one can’t or won’t. 

•Understanding what’s happening in the mind of someone facing their last days, hours, minutes, and moments.

•How to come to grips with our own mortality, maybe putting plans in place, living life differently after having held the hand of a loved one who is actively dying. 

•Ways to give hope where none seemed possible.

•Death from a medical perspective, and much more.

“Dr. Ed” is the first Mayo Clinic doctor board certified in hospice and palliative medicine. He is also board certified in internal medicine and medical oncology (cancer). He is professor emeritus of medical oncology at the Mayo Clinic Medical School where he held the endowed chair as the John and Roma Rouse Professor of Humanism in Medicine, and he is now Emeritus Professor of Humanism in Medicine and an Emeritus Consultant in Palliative Medicine.

“Every human deserves dignity and peace in the final chapter of life. Written by a caring physician with experience in palliative care and deep knowledge of the dying process, Farewell is a must-read book that could help each of us personally and also benefit those caring for the terminally ill.”

Deepak Chopra, MD, FACP

Cofounder, Chopra Center for Wellbeing