TNEEL-NE


Anticipatory Grief

Learning Activities

Activity 6: Questions from “Making The Most of Borrowed Time” by Susan Arlen, M.D.

Questions: Each question is the commentary of different patient scenario. Please response as if you were the nurse caring for the family in the situation.

Q: / "My wife is dying. She had never been a particularly strong person. She doesn't know her diagnosis. I don't know whether or not to tell her the truth, I don't want her to be too upset."
A:
Q: / "I love my daughter very much, but I cannot bear seeing her getting weaker and sicker. It seems as if she is being tortured to death by her treatments. Sometimes, I wish she could just die and put an end to both her suffering and my suffering. I feel like a monster even thinking such awful things, but I can't stand losing her bit by painful bit. I feel as if my own skin is being stripped off a piece at a time."
A:
Q: / "My husband is terminally ill. I am thirty-two years old and have two children, six and eight years old. I love my husband very much, but I am so frightened about what will happen to me and the children when he dies. I stopped working when we had the children, because we decided I should be a full-time mother.
"He promised me than that I would never have to work, and though I know that he is helpless in his situation, I feel so betrayed. All our plans are ruined. I may sound selfish, but I am terrified about my own future. It hurts enough just to see him in pain."
A:
Q: / "My wife is just lying in bed with her face turned to the wall. I want to talk to her and tell her that I love her, but I can't because she behaves as if she has shut out me and the world and gone into her own grief."
A:
Q: / "My husband is terminally ill and is behaving as if nothing is wrong, as if nothing is happening. I want to talk abut how much I love him, how sad I am to be losing him, how frightened I am of going on without him, but I can't because he refuses to admit the seriousness of his illness"
A:
Q: / "I am a fifteen-year-old boy. My father is dying. My mother has changed a lot and alternates between sitting quietly and staring into space or yelling and screaming at everyone. She is very unpredictable. I can't depend on her anymore. She doesn't do any of the things that she used to do. I know I'm being selfish, but I'm really scared about what will happen to me."
A:

© Bereavement Press. Reprinted with permission from Bereavement Publishing, Inc 1-888-604-4673 (HOPE).

Page 1

S:\Multimedia Team_TNEEL\Tneel\TNEEL_FINAL\Grief\gm3\activity6 questions.doc

TNEEL-NE ã2001 D.J. Wilkie & TNEEL Investigators Anticipatory Grief