Anticipating the inevitable

The question of palliative care being offered to long-time sufferers of anorexia is popping up in the news lately.  On January 4 of this year, the New York Times reported on a medical movement to honor end of life choices for patients in their thirties who have struggled with this lethal mental illness for decades despite many intensive treatments. Anorexia is the second largest killer among mental illness, right behind opioid addiction. The idea is that when treatment has been attempted and failed over many trials and years, the disease should perhaps be considered terminal, on a case-by-case basis. 

Today, the Washington Post is running an opinion piece on this topic.  The author points to a failed treatment system for anorexia.  Is it any wonder that treatment fails when insurance companies end hospital stays for patients who are improving but need more time to meet healthy weight goals?  How can a treatment program be expected to succeed when underweight patients are sent home, often with scant resources for after care?

Having lost a 27-year-old daughter to anorexia, after several hospital stays and many years of outpatient therapy, I find this discussion fascinating.  Every situation is different, and I have some concerns about the idea of labeling this disease a terminal one.  It certainly can become terminal, for many.  It did for Colleen. But I think it may take more research funding and more public awareness about this killer to make this sort of determination in the medical community.

If this topic interests you, if you didn’t know how lethal anorexia is (right behind opioid use, which we read so much about), you might consider reading my story.  Told from the mother’s perspective, it offers another voice to this conversation.

These Dreams of You: a mother’s story of love, loss, and resilience, by Ann McCloskey. 2023. Green Writer’s Press.  (www.greenwriterpress.com or wherever books are sold)

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