A friend of mine gave me a copy of Awareness of Dying, which is a book I was looking forward to reading as I am interested in Grounded Theory and death. It's been rather disappointing so far in that it wasn't what I expected. I was looking for something about the meaning of death, rather than an explanation of how people (those dying and those caring for those dying) deal with death. It is interesting, however, and I am going to finish it off.
How to decide whether or not to tell someone they are dying... I suppose this is a significant question. I think I want to know if I am dying — it seems rather odd that everyone would pretend you are ultimately going to get better when it looks like you won't.