Posted on 04/02/2005 10:00:50 AM PST by Grampa Dave
What if? Three Steps to Take Now to Prepare
A Suze Orman exclusive
Here’s what you need to do to make sure you, and your family, are never put into that position.
1. Tell Your Doctors What You Want Make it clear to your doctors exactly what you want them to do, and not to do, if you are too ill to express your wishes. In a written document called an Advance Directive, lay out the specific types of medical care you want if you are in a coma or have a terminal illness. (Advance Directives are sometimes called Living Wills.)
This document should include instructions on whether you want to be kept alive if you have a terminal illness that will result in your death in a short period of time, you have been in a coma for more than seven days with no hope that you will emerge from it, or the burdens of any treatment that would outweigh the expected benefits. You need a doc that tells your Doc what you want.
Once you complete the form, it only becomes effective when you sign it. Different states have different rules on whether your signature needs to be witnessed or notarized. My advice is to do both: Get two witnesses, plus a notary, just to make sure no one can challenge your document.
Give all your doctors a copy of your Advance Directive to keep in your medical file. Give a copy to each member of your family as well and discuss it with them so they are clear on what you want.
An Advance Directive by itself doesn’t provide you complete protection. In one recent study, 65 percent of doctors’ decisions did not follow the instructions laid out in patients’ Advance Directives to the letter.
This brings us to our second document….
2. Appoint an Agent to Ensure Your Advance Directive Is Followed Let’s get grim for a second: You have suffered a horrible injury or are in the late stages of a terminal illness, and you can no longer communicate. And at least one doctor or relative starts to question the wishes laid out in your Advance Directive.
To make sure your wishes simply shut down the debate, you need a second document: a Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care. This officially appoints another person to represent you if you cannot communicate for yourself and to make sure every detail you specified in your Advance Directive is complied with. The technical term for this person is an "agent." Your DPOA lets you appoint an agent to keep everyone on track. (Just to avoid confusion: In some states, this document is also known as a Health Care Proxy.)
I want you to choose just one person to be your agent. It should be the person you trust most to honor your wishes—and that person must be willing to actively fight for you in conversations with doctors and family. Don’t make the mistake of trying to be "fair" by appointing all your children as agents or giving the job to your spouse plus another family member. As well-intentioned as I know you are—you don’t want to ruffle feathers—having more than one agent increases the odds of discord and not getting your wishes followed. It opens the door just a smidge for different opinions. Keep it simple, by choosing just one agent.
Your agent should be someone who lives nearby and can get to a local hospital in a snap if necessary. Don’t give the job to someone halfway around the globe.
3. Get the Documents, Now Each state has its own Advance Directive. But the truth is, almost any state's form will hold up in another state. This form on my site is the one attorneys consider the gold standard for both Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care and Advance Directive. You can also go to the Partnership for Caring (link to www.partnershipforcaring.org) where you can download an Advance Directive form for your state. But, please remember, you need both forms mentioned above.
Okay, let’s recap: To give yourself the ultimate in peace of mind, you need both an Advance Directive to specify what you want and a Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care that designates an "agent" to represent your wishes if you can no longer speak for yourself.
It is that simple. And please know you can always make changes to these documents. Just create and sign new versions, with the more recent date clearly displayed. Then send the new versions to everyone who has a copy of the old documents and include a letter asking each person to destroy the earlier documents since they no longer represent your wishes.
And then rest easy.
Instead this is a subject that all of us need to address with our loved ones.
We need to let them know what our desires are and how to carry them out. If we have adult sons and daughters, they need to discuss this and get their wants/desires in writing like we need to do.
There are alternatives to living wills and hopefully someone will post them.
Please try to avoid flame wars and try to help each other here.
I will be off the board most of today and tomorrow. If I don't respond, I'm off the board/computer.
Please ping your lists.
Regardless of what side of the Terri mess we are on. We need to make our wishes/wants clear and documented for our loved ones. Don't leave them in the dark and yourself at the mercy of the courts.
Take the time to discuss what you want, spell it out, have it witnessed and maybe notarized. We did this when we set up our trust two years ago, and we will revisit those orders we set out and make some changes.
thanks for posting this.
I have a Living Will. Though I expect to be hale and healthy for at least another fifty years, the whole point of these things is "ya never f'n' know".
"Being prepared is EXACTLY what we should be doing....."
Absolutely! In private freepmails and emails and in person I have discussed how we all need to set down and discuss this and be prepared.
This article/oped by Suze is an excellent vehicle for us to do it.
The members of my family are being sent this article by Suze with one question, have you done this?
The way the courts work now, they'll take your carefully-crafted living will, stuff it down your throat and let you suffocate on it.
We have the trust, the agents and other documents. However, we may make some changes. We have a great lawyer, and she will be glad to do this at probably no costs as this is such a critical issue.
"No hope that you will emerge" = Brain death, in which case no one needs to be told what to do, since you will be dead.
We have a carefully crafted trust with a lawyer who specializes in this. So far she is batting 1,000 with her trusts.
Her and her peer's batting averages with the wills was appalling. This is why she doesn't do wills anymore.
Oh, that's different. Carry on, then.
Here's my problem: I guess I'm not sure myself what to have them do. In terri's case, they made a new law AFTER the fact that included feeding tube. So when (and if) she made a statement about machines keeping her alive, she couldn't have meant feeding tubes. Now what is I say ya, no heroics and I'm in there (afterwards) very much alive saying, "forget all that...dang it...I'm alive in here" OUCH Too late.
I did this before I went over to Baghdad....
the wife has done it now too, at my urging. Except that I doubt I would ever give up on her...
I guess my point is...Is that 100% accurate?
It will only help to talk to loved ones if they are, indeed, loved ones. If someone has married a person who is abusive, talking it over won't help. Putting it on paper might, if copies are left with the right people. Even then, a spouse's wishes might trump the paper.
I think that the real point should be what you would wish, and who you trust to make sure that happens - regardless of bickering over technical definitions of various mental/neurological states.
Choose the line you don't want to cross. Communicate that line. Get it in writing. Get the backup mentioned above. Avoid another pathetic circus. Period.
Good grief! I certainly hope not!! PBS does enough of that already!!!
Yuck!!!
Teresa Schiavo was not brain dead, and neither was anyone else who "woke up", since the correct definition excludes that possibility.
National Right to Life – What is a Will to Live and Why You Need to Sign One
Good for both of you.
Getting our younger relatives on both sides of the family to even discuss this is like trying herd mountain lions.
We have a lot nephews and nieces on both sides of the family both married and single. The married ones have from one child to four. None of them want to address this potential mess, and who should look after their kids if the ultimate horror happens.
When our sons were babies, we designated my wife's younger brother and his wife as guardians if we were killed, and they did the same.
yeah and since they dont want to face the mess, that is more the reason to get it done.
Think of the mess it will be should the most unfortunate of events happen....
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