A reassuring and thoroughly researched guide to maintaining a high quality of life-from
resilient old age to the first inklings of a serious illness to the final breath-by the New
York Times bestselling author of Knocking on Heaven's Door. The Art of Dying Well is about
living as well as possible for as long as possible and adapting successfully to change. Packed
with extraordinarily helpful insights and inspiring true stories award-winning journalist and
prominent end-of-life speaker Katy Butler shows how to thrive in later life (even when coping
with a chronic medical condition) how to get the best from our health system and how to make
your own good death more likely. This handbook of step by step preparations-practical communal
physical and sometimes spiritual-will help you make the most of your remaining time be it
decades years or months. Butler explains how to successfully age in place why to pick a
younger doctor and how to have an honest conversation with her when not to call 911 and how
to make your death a sacred rite of passage rather than a medical event. This down-to-earth
manual for living aging and dying with meaning and even joy is based on Butler's own
experience caring for aging parents as well as hundreds of interviews with people who have
successfully navigated a fragmented health system and helped their loved ones have good deaths.
It also draws on interviews with nationally recognized experts in family medicine palliative
care geriatrics oncology hospice and other medical specialties. Inspired by the medieval
death manual Ars Moriendi or the Art of Dying The Art of Dying Well is the definitive update
for our modern age and illuminates the path to a better end of life.
