Sue Wootton
Aspiring Daybook by Annabel Wilson describes a year in the life of a young New Zealander, Elsie Winslow, whose carefree travels in Europe are interrupted by a phone call:
A phone call in the middle of the night. Not a good sign.
Out of context, the wrong time, too early or too late.
Malevolent omen. So often the sound of bad news.
And it is bad news. Elsie’s brother has cancer. She boards a long haul flight, heading home to help look after him. Time, place, light – all these reliable fundamentals seem to be falling apart. “I’m on a plane, going forward in time, back into the past … Today is New Year’s Day, and it’s getting erased.” Elsie’s journal becomes a kind of touchstone, or navigation tool, for piecing together a new reality on the other side of this catastrophic news. [Read more…]
For any medical student, there’s something quite hard to forget about walking into the anatomy lab for the very first time. My shoes squeaked against the blue linoleum floor as I wove my way through rows of grey body bags lying on stainless steel trolleys under that harsh fluorescent white light. What I found challenging about my first encounter with a corpse was that it was so undeniably and certainly human. Structurally there was not much difference between me and the body that lay on the trolley.
On Thursday 5 April, New Zealanders will be encouraged to think about, talk about, and plan for their future and end-of-life care.