While sitting around a picnic table last summer, the Vashon Conversation for the Living about Dying team considered potential topics for an island-wide forum in 2018. We asked what do people want to consider and hear about around death and dying? Given that our common death prognosis is 100 percent, we imagined an offering on the topic of leaning in to our pain and fear around end-of-life from a palliative care perspective.

Studies show that we fear the “process of dying” more than we fear death itself. In talking with hundreds of islanders, we know that thinking about dying can evoke fears of separation, loss, pain, suffering and anxiety. This fear is common in many healthy people, as well as in patients dying of cancer or other terminal illnesses. A hopeful antidote for our fear is palliative care. The essence of palliative care is to improve the quality of life for people who face a serious or life threatening illness. It provides an extra layer of support, an addition to curative medical treatment. It greatly increases the possibility of living a satisfying life until the end — maybe even checking off an item or two on one’s “bucket list.”

Imagine being invited to share your values and needs with an interdisciplinary health care team, naming what is most important and worrisome, and getting support in navigating your medical, emotional and spiritual journey, together with your family and important others in your life. That’s what good palliative care looks like.

Here on Vashon, we have complementary resources to provide that kind of care. Our Providence hospice and home health teams and our extraordinary cadre of private caregivers can help ease our fear of dying. Vashon Community Care is an island oasis staffed by competent, compassionate professionals, who provide a home away from home for residents. And, we have each other … stories of families surrounded by friends and neighbors at the end of life abound on Vashon. Collectively, we are walking each other home.

Consider joining your fellow islanders at a day devoted to “Unraveling the Mystery of Palliative Care.” The workshop will meet from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Vashon High School. The guest speakers are experts in their field. You’ll learn about the impact of palliative care on patients, families and caregivers; multiple approaches to pain, stress and anxiety, including complementary interventions; use and effectiveness of medical marijuana and even comfort care for our animal companions.

Trained advance care planning facilitators will be available throughout the day to support you in completing your advance care directive.

This day offers the opportunity to become a more informed medical consumer.

Talking about dying can be scary. While avoiding talking about death can reduce some discomfort in the short term, it probably makes most of us much more anxious about dying in the long term. It is true that we can’t change the outcome of our terminal state but we can change the quality of the last chapter of our lives.

Bring a friend or family member and join this life-giving, fear-reducing conversation.

The event is free and all are welcome. For more information check our website: vashonconversation.org.

— Vicki Boyd and Carol Spangler are members of the Vashon Conversation for the Living About Dying Team.