Final Victory : Taking Charge of the Last Stages of Life, Facing Death on Your Own Terms

By Thomas A. Preston

Let's face it, we're all going to die eventually. Dying, after all, is a part of natural life. Unfortunately, modern medicine has turned this natural process into an experience that is often traumatic and painful not only to patients, but also to their loved ones. According to Thomas A. Preston, M.D., a nationally respected patients' rights advocate, it doesn't have to be this way. "Read this book. Make use of what you learn. Pass it on." - Robert Fulghum, author ofAll I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten InFinal Victory,Dr. Preston shows how you can take charge of life's end and set the stage for a peaceful, dignified death. He gives you invaluable information on the dying process, the limits of modern medicine, and what living wills can and cannot accomplish. He describes which treatments reduce suffering, which extend it, and how far doctors can legally go to reduce pain. You will discover how to accept a serious diagnosis, how to understand life-expectancy statistics, how to decide among treatment options, how to talk with your doctors and your loved ones, and how to take charge of the medical decisions that will profoundly affect you and those you will leave behind. Final Victorymay be the most important book you or a loved one will ever read.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0761528997
• ISBN13: 9780761528999
• Release Date: September 2000
• Publisher: Prima Lifestyles
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

author's review

The purpose of this book is to show how patients, working with their families and physicians, can greatly reduce suffering at the end of life. Despite a desire not to linger while dying, many patients suffer because of excessive treatments that only prolong the dying phase. Even very knowledgeable patients and their families are unprepared to make decisions necessary to reduce end-of-life suffering because they are not emotionally or spiritually prepared to accept the inevitability of dying, and they don't know how to gain control over what is happening to them. This book is written as a guide to dying on your own terms through advance planning to limit futile and painful treatments and to obtain good relief of symptoms. You can't just do it at the end-you have to be prepared well in advance. It takes some work-mostly learning how to deal with doctors and your family-but it will help you to peaceful dying when the time comes. This book tells you how.