That's where we have to begin. People involved in hospice work generally bristle at the mention of Jack Kevorkian. If we did our jobs properly, I think very few people would be asking to die. It's only when people become desperate that they seek to die. Usually, though, they will not say, 'I want to die.
Extreme pain can also cause nausea and vomiting, so eating becomes impossible.
They're weak, they're exhausted, they can't enjoy food. This is when they become desperate. But when their pain is controlled, they become themselves again. It can be a profoundly meaningful time, a time for making peace with the past and for forging reconciliations. Doing so brings meaning to the patient's final days and gives surviving family members something to take with them, he said.