Dying to Tell You

Honoring a Final Request To Die Outside

Dying To Tell You: The Caring Perspective E06: Clinical Chaplain Aaron
Aaron Metcalf is a board-certified Clinical Chaplain at a Level 1 Trauma Center nestled in Portland, Oregon. Aaron has lived in Oregon most of his life and enjoys the northwest outdoorsy life along with the intense and meaningful work of chaplaincy. He especially loves working with amazing nurses and doctors as they engage in the challenging world of healthcare.
Aaron shares the story of a patient who, at the end of their life, expressed a desire to die outside. As you can imagine, that can prove to be challenging in a hospital setting. But Aaron and his team listened, understood, and started taking the steps necessary to make it happen. And, in Aaron's words, it was a beautiful death. 
Aaron is the co-host of No Really, I’m Fine, a wonderfully informative podcast on how we all handle—or at least try to handle—stress in our work and our lives.
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Dying To Tell You: The Caring Perspective is a series of interviews with healthcare professionals who sit down with Cody to share stories of patients and experiences that have changed how they practice, how they view death, and how they live their lives.

On Her Deathbed, Not Dying

Dying to Tell You: The Caring Perspective—E05 with Dr. John Mulder
Dr. Mulder shares his incredible story of a patient who was at the end of her life but, beyond medical explanation, not yet ready to go. And how he stumbled quite by accident on what seemed like the answer.
Dr. John Mulder currently serves as the Executive Director for Trillium Institute, Chief Medical Consultant for Hospice and Palliative Care for Holland Home, and the Medical Director of Palliative Care for University of Michigan Health-West in Grand Rapids, MI. He is a frequent speaker on end of life, ethics, and palliative issues and has been honored as the recipient of the 2019 Palliative Medicine Community Leadership Award by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.
We invite you to sit with Dr. Mulder and Cody as they discuss the deep reverence, compassion, and understanding it takes to serve in palliative care.
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Dying To Tell You: The Caring Perspective is a series of interviews with healthcare professionals who sit down with Cody to share stories of patients and experiences that have changed how they practice, how they view death, and how they live their lives.

The Caring Perspective E04—Hospice Halley

This week, Cody sits down with @Hospicehalley, a Hospice Social Worker and co-host of the Death Happens, An Insider’s Guide to Dying podcast with @hospicenursepenny. She previously hosted the Someday We’ll All Be Dead podcast from 2018–2024.
Halley tells the story of the very first time a patient of hers took Medical Aid In Dying (M.A.I.D.) and how despite her strongly held beliefs on personal agency and the right to die with dignity...it was still a difficult experience for her to witness.
A NOTE OF CAUTION: There is a brief mention of suicide as it relates to this subject.
Halley is an Army veteran, Pacific Northwest native, and licensed clinical social worker. She has been in hospice doing direct patient care for nearly ten years. In her free time, Halley enjoys spending time with her family and animals, watching movies, and listening to audiobooks. You can find her @HospiceHalley on most platforms.
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Dying To Tell You: The Caring Perspective is a series of interviews with healthcare professionals who sit down with Cody to share stories of patients and experiences that have changed how they practice, how they view death, and how they live their lives.

The Caring Perspective E03—Dr. Matthew Tyler

Dr. Matthew Tyler on the "hidden curriculum" of healthcare professionals—lessons they learn about some of the most difficult parts of their jobs, lessons they learn not in a classroom but by simply living through them.
Matt is board certified in internal medicine and hospice & palliative medicine with more than a decade of experience helping people living with a serious illness create personalized medical care plans centered around what matters most to them. He is a passionate educator who firmly believes that understanding your options and the trade-offs that come with them are the key to making tough choices with less doubt and regret.
He is also the founder of How To Train Your Doctor, an online coaching platform designed to help caregivers confidently make medical decisions related to a serious illness and/or end of life care. He specializes in creating educational bite-sized videos that cover a variety of topics related to hospice and palliative medicine that you can find on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
 
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Dying To Tell You: The Caring Perspective is a series of interviews with healthcare professionals who sit down with Cody to share stories of patients and experiences that have changed how they practice, how they view death, and how they live their lives.

The Caring Perspective E02—Dr. Jeff Manuel

"She left this world feeling comfortable with who she was."
Jeff Manuel is a palliative care physician in Denver, Colorado, and joins Cody to share his personal story about what he learned from one patient in particular—a young woman diagnosed with metastatic uterine cancer—at the end of her life.
Jeff has been practicing as a palliative care physician and educator for 16 years. He has had roles as a palliative medicine fellowship director and medical director and is the president of the board of HealthEd Connect (healthedconnect.org) a non-profit that works with community health workers in Africa and Nepal.
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Dying To Tell You: The Caring Perspective is a series of interviews with healthcare professionals who sit down with Cody to share stories of patients and experiences that have changed how they practice, how they view death, and how they live their lives.

Special Series—The Caring Perspective E01—Hospice Nurse Penny on how the body "does the work of dying"

This week on our very first Dying To Tell You: The Caring Perspective, Hospice Nurse Penny shares her experience with a patient whose spirit had seemingly left them but whose body was still there "doing the work of dying." This moment changed forever how Penny approached her patients, her practice, and even her own belief in the afterlife.
Penny is a nationally certified hospice and palliative care registered nurse with over 17 years of experience who has created a massive and caring community on social media since starting during the pandemic. You can find her on most social platforms under the handle @hospicenursepenny.
And she now has a book out! 
You can (and should) order her book—Influencing Death: Reframing Dying for Better Living—from any online seller, including bookshop! 
And you can (and should) watch this video interview on YouTube! It's right here!

A Brief Giving Tuesday Request (and what's next for the show!)

A brief (3 minutes!) update after our Season Two finale!
It's Giving Tuesday and if you love the show, we have a humble request. If you believe in our mission to normalize death and dying and have the means, we'd like to ask for your support this Giving Tuesday. We are not a nonprofit, but even a small gift helps with production costs that include software licenses, stock music licensing, distribution platforms, and so much more.
Cody also shares news about our upcoming inter-season YouTube series "Dying To Tell You: A Caring Perspective," in which healthcare providers discuss their own encounters with death and dying, and how that has shaped both their practices and their lives.

A Very Dying To Tell You Thanksgiving (Video Finale!)

For the finale of Season Two, we invited back a few previous guests for a very special Thanksgiving episode...with video! 
Riyaz, Rachel, and Javeeda joined us live and on-camera to share how they're doing and what they're grateful for. Join us around the virtual Thanksgiving table for this lovely hour of reconnection, gratitude, and life.
If you're listening to the audio podcast only, head over to YouTube to see the video version or watch it on our site: dttypodcast.com
Thank you also for joining us as listeners for Season Two. We've interviewed more people living with an ever-greater spectrum of circumstances in more far-flung locations, and we continue to see the common threads connecting us all.
We are deeply grateful that, with your support, we're able to keep sharing these stories with the world.

I'm Still Me: A Reflection on Dementia, Aging, and Identity

Between each episode, Cody offers a brief reflection on the themes he discussed with his guest the week before.
Today, Cody reflects on his conversation with Jackie & Shannon, and what can happen to our identity—our sense of self—when we begin to lose memories, shift roles, and face what sometimes seems like a stranger in the mirror. What makes a person who they are? What do we do when our role in life changes?
Music for this episode is from Trevor Ransom, "The Lamp Kept Us Warm But Now We Walk."

Jackie & Shannon: How Alzheimer's Is More Than Memory Loss

Our final guests of Season 2 are Jackie & Shannon, a mother and daughter navigating the changes and challenges of Alzheimer's. Jackie has moved out of her home in California and now splits her time between the homes of her daughters in Colorado. 
There is so much more to the story of Alzheimer's and dementia than just memory loss. The transformations of this disease impact almost every aspect of daily life. Jackie and Shannon share their challenges, their joys, their hopes and their fears in this wonderfully open and honest conversation with Cody. 
>>Theme Music by Michael Shynes, "The Other Side"<<
Music featured in this week's episode:
Michael Shynes, “California in the Spring”
Low Light, “Lay Me Down”
Russo and Weinberg, “Were All Having Fun”
Giants and Pilgrims, “Empty”