Book of Doodles, Tangents & Snippets
The idea for Elephant in the Room was born on the crisp first page of a journal. The entry was dated 4/8/2019.
The journal was purchased as a tool to synthesize my work as a palliative nurse practitioner. Every day I was submersed in the unexpected, sickness, aging, grief, and dying. My hope with the journal was to process and capture all the stories that I feel honored to be a part of.
My patient’s lives shape me as a clinician and as a person. They teach me about deep love, family, strength, courage, joy, and resilience. Most importantly, they teach me that laughter is the best medicine we have.
Every day they share with me why it’s important to forgive, find healthy ways to release anger, move through grief, and live a life you will have little regret - including facing our fears of sickness, aging, death and loss.
Writing has always been a conduit of life for me. It always provides a wider perspective and reveals what’s beneath the day-to-day. Through the pages and pages written, I find the patterns that create my existence and my purpose. I explore what it means to be human.
I wrote the first entry after a rather invigorating run. There were some doodles and arrows pointing to “book idea,” it had something to do about the last stage of life. Maybe a book was the way to share all the pearls of wisdom my patients had given me and let their essence live on through the words.
I immediately ordered numerous books off Amazon on sickness, grief, dying, and aging. See the list below for some great reads! My quest had begun.
I asked myself and continue to ask questions like:
How can the conversations I have every day with patients be more accessible to everyone?
How can I capture what they teach me about life and share it with others?
How can I translate my patient’s lives to live on in this world to create a more loving existence and our journey a little more navigable?
The very next entry had a scribbled star with “first - it would be a good idea to develop a quick simple playing card-like game before writing a book.”
Then I put a big circle around this new idea and a seedling for Elephant in the Room Deck was born.
Thank you for being curious and supportive. If you know of anyone who might be curious about transforming the way we communicate about the unexpected, sickness, dying, and aging. Please feel free to spread the word and share posts.
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Reading List
Here is a list of books I’d love to share with you. For ease of purchase click below for the full Elephant Amazon List:
Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
The Five Invitations by Frank Ostaseki
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
On Death & Dying by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D.
The Beginner’s Guide to the End: Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death by BJ Miller, M.D. & Shoshana Berger
How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter by Sherwin B. Nuland
Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them): A Practical Perspective On Death by Sallie Tisdale
From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty
How We Live and Why We Die: The Secret Lives of Cells by Lewis Wolpert
The Good Death: An Exploration of Dying in America by Ann Neumann
In the Slender Margin: The Intimate Strangeness of Death and Dying by Eve Joseph
Death’s Summer Coat: What the History of Death and Dying Teaches Us About Life and Living by Brandy Schilace
Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson by Mitch Albom
The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe
The Wisdom of the Shamans by Don Jose Ruiz