“When the end of life is near, you still have a lot of life…”, recalls Dr. Gretchen in this podcast. Dr. Gretchen remembers the phone call she received, as her father’s caregiver, that he was going into hospice and how it [hospice] was an “amazing gift the healthcare system could have given to me…”. With a terminal diagnosis they chose to focus on quality of life and living—advice she suggests for her patients and their families. Dr. Gretchen describes her father’s choice to use medical cannabis for his pain and how it gave him control over his condition. She hopes to inspire listeners to not let a terminal diagnosis get in the way of living life, to walk each day in gratitude, and live in the present. At the end of the podcast she offers advice and steps to take when faced with hospice and a terminal diagnosis and reminds us to have a conversation with a loved one about your end-of-life wishes.
For more related podcasts, check out the “On Death” podcast by Eugene Kim.