What if? Three Steps to Take Now to Prepare! (avoiding the Terri mess)

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.

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.

"Now that a precedent is set, it will be up to the court to decide anyway so we probably wasted our time.'

We discussed this yesterday with our former lawyer. He has gone from personal law to representing the biggies suing the biggies for breaking contracts and not paying for services.

This is a guy who doesn't look, act like or sound a lawyer. He had done our wills yeas ago, and he directed us to a trust lawyer a few years ago. He had the same lawyer set up a trust for his wife and him.

He now feels that most judges will go out of their way not to defy what is legally the wishes of people in terminal or possible terminal states. There is too much awareness due to the Terri mess to make changes.

However, he feels if we don't have it legally documented what we want done, a case precedent has been set. So family members and lawyers wanting to end our lives when we are ill, will seek out judges, who will agree with them and use this mess as a case law precedent.

Now for a little humor in this intense thread:

Recently, I was diagnosed with A. A. A. D. D. - Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder. This is how it manifests:

I decide to wash my car. As I start toward the garage,

I notice that there is mail on the hall table.

I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car!

I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the trash can under the table, and notice that the trash can is full.

So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the trash first.

But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the trash anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my checkbook off the table, and see that there is only one check left.

My extra checks are in my! desk in the study, so I go to my desk where I find the can of Coke that I had been drinking.

I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over.

I see that the Coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the coke a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye--they need to be watered.

I set the Coke down on the counter, and I discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning.

I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote.

Someone left it on the kitchen table.

I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be
looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on
the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.

I splash some water on the flowers, but most of it spills on the floor.

So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.

Then I head down the hall trying to remember what I was
planning to do.

At the end of the day: the car isn't washed, the bills aren't paid, there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter, the flowers aren't watered, there is still only one check in my checkbook, I can't! find the remote, I can't find my glasses, and I don't remember what I did with the car keys.

Then when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day long, and I'm really tired.

I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail.

Do me a favor, will you? Forward this message to everyone you know, because I don't remember to whom it has been sent.

Don't laugh -- if this isn't you yet, your day is coming!

GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY.
GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL
LAUGHING AT YOURSELF IS THERAPEUTIC!

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