Living with dying

Doctor and prize-winning author of The Way We Die, Professor Seamus O'Mahony, has strong views about how death is managed, or mis-managed in hospital today - he shares them here

When Sean McGibney's brother Kieran died, Sean didn't find it at all easy to access any help for sibling grief....and so he's founded his own charity NOA (Number One Always) to support anyone who finds themselves in a similar position.

Oliver Christen talks very movingly about his book  As She Chose - about his mother's choice to end her life with a death fast - sometimes known as Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking.  So a trigger warning - as he calmly describes the way his mother came to this choice and how she achieved it with his support.  

Russell Jackson is the author of a book called There are No Words - a Bereaved Father's guide to Stillbirth and Neo Natal loss.  He writes from his own experience of losing his daughter Florence who was still born in 2022.

Professor Richard Coker caused a bit of a stir over the airwaves and social media recently on publication of his book Timor Mortis - 'How We Live with Death' where he openly discusses how doctors have always been involved in Assisted Dying

Author and illustrator Katie Cleminson's very moving story of what it was like going through labour with her daughter Wren, who was sadly stillborn.  And we talk about her new picture book 'Beyond' (Penguin Random House) that came out of the whole experience. 

One million people in the UK have a diagnosis of Dementia - and although many of them are clustered around communities where the elderly choose to live, there are also, sadly, younger people in their 40s and 50s with dementia too.  Steve Sansom works with both the elderly and the young for the Age UK Dementia service in and around the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.

We don't always give pet loss the attention it deserves - indeed we tend not to expect people to experience 'proper' grief when it comes to animals.  But many of us know that losing a family pet  can be devastating - as Grief Counsellor  Kate Nudds explains here.

Lucy Carpenter works for HospiceUK as their Compassionate Employers Lead.  This means she works with people who are around death and dying every day in hospices, as well as those who deal with the bereaved in other every day jobs.  Many of us have had bad experiences trying to inform banks and utilities about the death of a loved one.  Her work aims to improve those interactions.

Jess Seymour - who last talked to us (Episode 28) about the untimely death of her husband Matt aged 35 is now involved in organising an Art Trail for Thames Hospice where he died.  She shares her mixed emotions about this and the way the work has helped her through her grief.