MY MISSION IS A DEEPLY
PERSONAL ONE...
Hi, I’m Tamara MacIntyre and I am an End of Life Architect: a consultant and a guide. I am other things too... a certified end of life doula, doctor, wife, daughter, potter, coffin maker, cyclist.
What is most germain in this context is that like everyone, I have known illness and suffered grief in my lifetime.
We will not escape death.
What challenged me most was the fear that one could be labeled ‘perfectly healthy’ one day and receive a terminal diagnosis the next. I turned my fear into curiosity and dove into decades long education in health, disease and human expression to understand the true nature of illness so that I could offer support and solutions. It is simply not possible to be healthy on Monday and diagnosed with cancer on Tuesday. That is not how the body works.
I know the trajectory of illness from diagnosis to death as it typically plays out in our culture AND I deeply want it to be different for me, for those I love and those I work with.
You do not have to accept your death as described below...
“Our final rites are a last communion
with data and machines.
We drape our dying heartbeats with drugs and speak our last words silently into
the hollow of a respiratory tube.”
– NATHAN GRAY MD, PALLIATIVE CARE PHYSICIAN
UNIVERSITY OF DUKE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
This does not have to be how the story ends - with your death as a medical event. It is important to recognize that death is not a failure of medicine.
I want to ease the path for as many people as possible. If you are someone that wants to do it differently, congruently and consciously then please reach out for guidance.
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF TO ENSURE A GOOD DEATH
A series of questions curated to help you identify the setting, the people and the experience that you want to have around your death.
FOLLOW
WHAT PEOPLE SAY