The last book from bestselling author and advocate Wendy Mitchell on living life and preparing for death.
Wendy Mitchell spent twenty years as a non-clinical team leader in the NHS before being diagnosed with young-onset dementia in July 2014 at the age of fifty-eight. Shocked by the lack of awareness about the disease, both in the community and in hospitals, she vowed to spend her time raising awareness about dementia and encouraging others to see that there is life after a diagnosis. In 2019 she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Health by the University of Bradford for her contribution to research. She has two daughters and lives in Yorkshire.
Very compelling . . . A really thoughtful and thorough exploration
of end-of-life concerns – shared, I know, by many people with
dementia diagnoses and their families. Strong and clear about your
own values, you recognise and support others' choices too.
*Professor Celia Kizinger*
One Last Thing is wonderful .... [Wendy,] thank you for writing it,
thank you for listening to so many voices and for unpicking the
threads to find the details that you needed to know. Thank you for
thinking aloud, for 'showing your working out,' so others can
follow you along the winding road into the future . . . your book
will give hope and courage to many people, because as we both know
when we speak about dying we always find ourselves reflecting on
living. This beautiful book is an uplifting and courageous read,
and I am incredibly proud to know you.
*Kathryn Mannix*
As wise and wonderful as you might imagine, having the vital
conversation about death – hers & ours, in her final book. Don't
duck this one: you will be glad you joined her.
*Professor Tom Shakespeare*
Anyone who reads Mitchell’s work can only admire her passion, her
energy and her extraordinary courage. She is absolutely right that
we need to talk more about death. She is right that we need to plan
for it
*Sunday Times*
[An] urgent, humane manifesto on how to care for and about those
edging towards the finality of death
*Telegraph*
Remarkable . . . One Last Thing is packed with useful thoughts and
advice on how we might best plan for the end . . . I hope that
doesn’t sound depressing or morbid, because this book is anything
but
*The Times*
One Last Thing, stares death in the face, but it’s also a clarion
cry to enjoy the time you have left
*i*
An uplifting memoir that reminds us we should relish every
moment
*Daily Mail*
A journey exploring all angles of death
*Tablet*
Powerful
*Observer*
One Last Thing – the best and most useful book I have read this
year – is about how to die with dementia, a subject doctors tend
not to address. She does not want to ‘slip over the edge’, she
explains, and spend her last years inside a black hole . . . One
Last Thing is an argument for assisted dying and also, invaluably,
a guide to the paperwork and acronyms involved, including ACP,
ReSPECT, LPA and DNACPR forms. It is curious, Mitchell notes, how
little value we place on a good death when the death rate among us
is 100 per cent
*Spectator: Best Books of the Year 2023*
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