No One Escapes Coronavirus Time is of the essence for Graceful Departures BY CHRISTINA FUOCO-KARASINSKI April 16 is National Healthcare Decisions Day, but end-of-life choices might be necessary today given the COVID-19 pandemic. Do you or your ER doctor decide if you’re placed on a ventilator? Who decides your last breath? Is now too soon to plan for death? For 30 years, emergency physician Dr. Kevin Haselhorst has sat with patients and their families grappling with end-oflife decisions. He says most people make poor decisions in emergency situations, stating, “We’re not there yet.” Physicians are not trained to help patients make end-of-life decisions; they’re geared to make things better and save lives. This best practice makes dying miserable for everyone involved. Being an expert on advance care planning, Haselhorst places all the options on the table along with the option to remove suffering. He prefers patients think for themselves and do what’s best for them. Making the profound decision to not suffer removes the prospect of any artificial life support including ventilators, feeding tubes and even antibiotics. The author of “Wishes to Die For” and “Is Palliative Care Right for You,” Haselhorst began to plant the seed for having people actually thrive at the end of life. Graceful Departures emerged from his desire to nurture the body, ease the mind and feed the soul of the person suffering with aging and illness. Haselhorst founded Graceful Departures with “the end” in mind. It’s a concierge practice of holistic end-of-life care. Ideally, an experienced concierge knows what people want before they know what they want. Most people don’t want to die in the hospital but 70% of patients do. Sadly, the stigma of hospice and the prospect “giving up” keep people from being ready to die. Holistic end-of-life care allows people to finish strong without suffering, feeling like a chronic patient. It’s the path to aging and dying naturally and gracefully. Navigating the sea of uncertainty with Graceful Departures imagines a
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person escaping the pandemonium and setting sail on a sunset cruise without a care in the world. You’re not giving up, you’re giving in to self-indulgence! The notion of feeding your soul is a spiritual principle and practice, like breathing in intention and exhaling indifference. This holistic exercise immediately overrides emotions and instills grace. Haselhorst acknowledges the two aspects of the nervous system, the fightor-flight response and the chill factor. By encouraging patients and family caregivers to become “chill” and heart-centered, finding the good in bad situations, he permits people to finish strong through self-validation and self-fulfillment. Like most who will die of coronavirus, patients often feel betrayed and shameful at the end of life. So they defy death at all costs and experience a fate worse than death. This fate is defined as being placed on a ventilator and having no control in life. Is this what you want? What’s the alternative? Haselhorst advances the concept of aging in place by having patients become tethered to home care rather than hospital care. Through Graceful Departures, he provides all the home support amenities aboard the “Love Boat,” including your personal massage therapist, bartender, budtender, music therapy alongside medical end-of-life care (hospice and palliative care). When serious illness takes a turn for the worse, patients simply have two options: Call 911 or board the “Love Boat.” The choice to be treated like a patient or respected as a person at the end of life seems obvious. Yet, most are not given this option, as seen by the incessant calls for more ventilators and needless stress during this pandemic. Dying is inevitable, but suffering is optional. Really? Aging in place, aging with intention and aging with grace is not possible without a holistic practitioner concierge, an aging mentor who’s experienced every stage of life in each emergency room. The main goal in life is to seek virtue (stress free and full of goodness).
Haselhorst can help you transition from being a vulnerable patient (susceptible to self-inflicted wounds) to becoming a virtuous person (resistant to self-inflicted wounds) via Graceful Departures. But time is of the essence to enlist his concierge practice. His mother might add, “Don’t put off till tomorrow what (holistic habits) can be done today.” Kevin Haselhorst founded Graceful Departures with “the end” in mind. It’s a concierge practice of holistic end-of-life care. (Submitted photo)
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