ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It was only possible to find the time to write this book because of the support of my wife, Karen, to whom the book is dedicated, with love.

I would like to warmly thank the whole team at Cynthia Spencer House for all their recent support and especially Ann Goodman, for her cheerful and efficient help with the manuscript. I am grateful to Yoshi Shimazu, who worked at Cynthia Spencer House as a volunteer, for some of the recorded comments from patients, which I use with permission.

Michal Galazka has played a very active part in the editing and production of the book, and I thank him for his sustained enthusiasm and encouragement.

I am very grateful to my colleague, Jill Stewart, for checking the sections on individual cancers.

Thanks to Ann Skinner and the staff at the Cripps Postgraduate Medical Centre Library, Northampton, England.

I would like to thank the following colleagues for their helpful comments: Lorna Allen, Sue Beresford, John Chapman, Pat Cooke, Brian Dowling, Alan Farnell, Charles Fox, Gillian Furguson, Rob George, Meg Green, Ken Lloyd, Maurice McClain, Barbara Malcomson, Evelyn Malloy, Leigh Moss, David Oliver, Jackie Phillips, Peter Robertson, Hamish Ross, Christine Russell and Liz Starmer.

Thanks to friends and colleagues in the U.S.A., including Ellen Laskarin at the Hospice Education Institute, Mary Pettit, Ruth Thayer and Eileen Torrenti at Visiting Nurses of the Lower Valley, Robert Delaney and Paul Schreiner at Doane’s Pharmacy, Richard Beaser, George Bowers, Jr., Jeffrey Rabuffo, James A. Zibluk, over 300 hospice and palliative care professionals who made helpful suggestions and comments about the preliminary edition of this book, and Ed Ziobron and Diane Dugal at Illustrated Printing Company who coped competently and patiently with additions and corrections.

The author and publisher have taken precautions to ensure that the information in this book is error-free. However, readers must be guided by their own personal and professional standards of good practice in evaluating and applying recommendations made herein. The contents of this book represent the views and experience of the author, and not necessarily those of the publisher.