COHO: Choosing Options, Honoring Options
Rogue Valley, Oregon
Contact COHO:
(541) 292-6466
info@cohoroguevalley.org
670 Superior Court, Ste. 208
PO Box 4189
Medford OR 97501
About COHO
Choosing Options, Honoring Options (COHO) is a coalition of individuals
and organizations whose purpose is to facilitate end of life conversations
in our community.
We do this by offering seminars, workshops and online resources to individuals, family members, and professional medical staff and care givers.
Reflections on End of Life Issues by John Forsyth, MD, COHO Chair
Over my long career in medicine, dealing with the plethora of end-of-life issues has been a most meaningful learning process, teaching me repeatedly about the marvelous and rich diversity of human life and emotion. Sharing these very special times in many lives has been, for me, a humbling experience, leaving me with a profound respect for my fellow human beings.
Reality is that each of us is born, live a certain span of time, then die (biologically speaking) in a manner not much different from many other forms of life. Despite rationally accepting the inevitability of our own deaths, we humans live much of our lives denying such a possibility, shielded from confrontation with our own mortality by the time demands of our busy existence, wrapped in a false sense of our own invulnerability. Thus, when confronted with the illness which will likely end our lives, we often respond with intense emotion (anger, denial, depression) as we adjust our perspective.
A few unfortunate human beings are unable to make such an adjustment and
death comes while the person (or the family) struggles in the destructive
depths of such emotion. Fortunately, for most of us, this same human tragedy
leads instead to a passage of personal growth, to a sense of peaceful resolution,
to a time of meaningful discovery ... and to a genuine celebration of the
love, joy and creativity which is also possible for human existence. To
me, the opportunity to share such experience with my family, my friends
and my patients has always seemed to be a very great privilege.
Hopefully, today’s consideration of advance care planning for end-of-life care will provide you with some keys…with which to unlock one of the most challenging and potentially meaningful conversations of your lifetime, allowing you to engage the lives of a few (or perhaps many) others, bringing to you with each such adventure the gift of healing released by shared human love.
Respectfully,
John W. Forsyth, M.D.
October 18, 2004
(slightly revised February 27, 2011)