Do you have a written Living Will/Advanced Directive?

[Dookus]

I'm curious as to how many people have done this. I'm 43 years old with a heart condition. I didn't have one until a few days ago.

Do you have written instructions?

[Banazir]

1. Yep.

Yep, essentially the "Spare no expense, keep me alive" variety.

[Dookus]

4. Good for you...

too bad for your family, who will be bankrupted.

[Banazir]

19. My family will likely not pay.

Seeing as I'm on government benefits for severe disability already.

But human lives are not about money or expense. To start talking about them that way is to tread a dangerous line. Which is precisely why I have the directive I do: It's dangerous to be a disabled and poor person these days because people start talking about you as if you're just a 'useless eater', to borrow a phrase that should never have existed in the first place.

[Fridays Child]

2. Last night, I posted a link to a free downloadable workbook and...

...advance directive form. Here it is, again: http://www.midbio.org/mbc-cc.htm

:hi:

[TaleWgnDg]

3. And have you insisted that YOUR PARENTS have . . .

.

And have you insisted that YOUR PARENTS have . . . end-of-life written directives that comport with the State* in which they reside? Do you have an up-to-date will/codicil? Do your parents? Do you have an attorney? Do your parents?

America stinks when it comes to death . . . yes, death which is a continuum of the cycle of life. We truly suck at it. Europeans tend to be better . . .

____________________

* end-of-life written directives vary WIDELY state-to-state. Consult with an attorney in your own state who is knowledgeable in these areas of law.

[Dookus]

5. Yes

I am in possession of my parents' advanced directive. They have given me power-of-attorney if the need should arise.

You raise a great point - even more important than our own concerns, we should all discuss it with our parents and resolve that.

[TaleWgnDg]

6. Yup, and hopefully many will do so due to this Schiavo fiasco . . . n/t

[rainbow4321]

21. Sad thing is...

after this fiasco we now have to make sure that we ask our KIDS if they have THEIR paperwork intact <and ask for a copy of it!!>.

[Radio_Lady]

7. Reports were that there has been a run on living will information...

One website mentioned this morning was:

http://www.agingwithdignity.org/

I'm going to our bank lockbox and look at ours at the earliest possible time. We have had a few glasses of wine and a couple of laughs about this eerie subject. You see, my husband wants his head frozen, and that's how he answers the questions about the end of life.

Me? Lots of morphine (I hear it's better than anything I've ever taken) and drift me out of this life before I'm a burden to anyone.

One of the things we have run in to is that I wanted to be cremated and my daughter, who is a Conservative Jew, doesn't want me to do that. Her branch of that religion believes that you come back in the next life and USE THE SAME BODY AGAIN -- perhaps with some updating!! What a thought! If I come back at all to another sensate life, I want to be a 6' tall blonde with legs up to HERE.

Just watched parts of the old movie "Death Becomes Her" with Bruce Willis, Goldie Hawn, and Merle Streep on AMC. Wasn't THAT an interesting programming decision for tonight???

[Dookus]

8. lol

I would hope it was planned ahead of time, but if not, "Death Becomes Her" was a brilliant last-minute choice.

[Jamastiene]

9. Not yet, but when I do

I hope to add a P.S. with a picture and an "advanced directive" that I be buried with my ass end up so Tom Delay and all the other repukes in the world can kiss my ass. :evilgrin:

[NV Whino]

10. Done for me and my mother a while back. n/t

[Scout]

11. I did before my last surgery...

but my husband needs to do one for him ... his parents are practicing Catholics, and I want them to be clear on HIS wishes too.

[LizW]

12. Ours specifically includes "No feeding tube"

Mine states my wishes and designates my husband as my decision-maker if I am incapacitated.

I would hope that would be good enough to keep the meddlers in Congress out of our personal affairs, but who knows.

[ScreamingMeemie]

13. Now I do. MrG will not be dressing the children up and bringing them

to the hospice to wipe drool off Mama's chin ever. :hi:

[Cuban_Liberal]

14. I do, and my s/o also has my health-care power of attorney.

Everything I own is held jointly with him, with the right of survivorship, and my last Will and Testament names him as my principal heir. Unless and until marriage becomes legal for gay men, that's the best I can do.

[LynneSin]

15. Everyone should have one including...

...anyone who has a relative who either voted for Bush or shows any inclination towards religious fervor.

My mother always knew how I felt but my biggest fear is another family member will get involved who I know is a Bush supporter and overly religious. I'm not taking any chances.

I'm also going to make sure my mother has hers put together because of said relative. I know she doesn't want to suffer but that isn't enough!!

[Banazir]

22. I got mine for somewhat opposite reasons.

I got my advance directive for almost the opposite reason.

I had relatives who had expressed support for the idea of euthanasia and shown that they'd projected certain views of what 'living a certain way' was like without really knowing it.

As a disabled person whose life has already been threatened by people thinking it would be better off to just 'let me die' in circumstances where anyone else's life would be saved, and who knows that people like me are routinely measured in a coldly utilitarian way in terms of economic costs and in terms of hatred that disguises itself as pity and sympathy, I decided it'd be prudent to get a living will prohibiting euthanasia of any sort and appointing decision-makers who aren't my next of kin. Having my next of kin decide what's right for me is frankly frightening.

The reasons aren't particularly religious, though. More that I don't want to be killed before my time by some overzealous do-gooder who thinks they magically know that living a certain way is worse than death. And I'd be willing to endure pain (although I've certainly authorized any and all pain control measures), which is not a foreign experience to me, in order to ensure that I don't get killed for as trivial a reason as the last time they tried it.

Or as disability activist Lucy Gwin put it:

Whether or not people with disabilities are better off dead, we sure are cheaper thataway. That point is not lost on the insurance actuaries and malpractice defense lawyers who run America's health care. Their version of health care rationing is Futile Care Policy. Futile care says that if people are cheaper dead than alive, and incurable besides, spending health care resources to keep them alive is cruel, is wasteful, is futile.

When I handed my own advance medical directive -- Spare no expense. Keep me alive. -- to a hospital social worker, she made a sour face and called it "selfish." Is it? She was probably a Democrat. I am. The Mayo Clinic published a study in 1996 with this finding: Health care professionals are more likely to consider CPR futile if the patient is not white. Please note that CPR is free and what we require is usually more costly. Why waste precious resources on people that most folks agree are better off dead?

(from http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/focus/gwinkerry0804.html -- she also wrote an article about a discussion with the ACLU here: http://www.notdeadyet.org/docs/articles/gwin0305.html)

Given that I've seen this happening and almost had it happen to me, the issue isn't too abstract in my mind and I've had the papers in place for years. The question is, as a poor person who's also disabled and probably considered to be expensive and having bad 'quality of life', whether my advance directive will even hold up against a hospital ethics committee. Given what's going on in Texas. There's a disturbing systemic undercurrent of utilitarian ableism going on around this whole issue, and unfortunately too few people see it.

[mrbill]

16. not written but oral.....

give me a cookie and shoot me in the back of the head or morphine would be nice.

the cats get 70% of the estate, daughter gets 30%, larry the lawyer is in charge.

[mcscajun]

17. Yes, and I've placed it in the hands of my most 'reality-based' sister,

who will have no problem 'letting me go with dignity' when the time comes. She's had it since my only major surgery five years ago.

Every close relative and close friend I have knows my wishes in a general sense. I've made no secret of it over the past ten years.

And I'll haunt them all if it goes any other way. :)

[Dookus]

18. I did the same...

I chose my only non-religious sibling. I love my parents, but I can see them making the wrong decisions for me based on their religion.

[mondo joe]

20. My partner and I do, and durable power of att'y as well. The funny thing

is the reason we did these things is that we can't legally marry.

But now we come to learn marriage isn't what it used to be.

[cynatnite]

23. I don't mean to be nosy, but I am curious about something

Do either of you ever worry about family members who might attempt to override you or your partner's wishes should something happen?

The reason I ask is because I've seen it happen. It was several years ago and when a patient was seriously ill, his family members blocked the partner from gaining any information from the hospital and wouldn't allow him to take part in any way.

It disturbed me so much that I've never forgotten it. He was in a car accident with a head injury and wasn't able to do much in his condition. The entire situation was heart-breaking.

[mondo joe]

26. I've seen it happen but think it's extremely unlikely in our case.

We've been togeher for 15 years, and we have no nutty family members - at least not nutty in THAT way.

THe only sort of question would be my dad, not because he's a fundy but just because we don't communicate that much and he's sort of out of the loop. But he's not a bad guy.

Our reasoning was more that if you're ever in a situation in which you need to have power of attorney the last thing you need is to NOT have it.

[in_cog_ni_to]

24. I have a Will.

I did my Will after my son was born. It then felt important to me.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

25. Yes....my wife and I both have wills and living wills.

[moobu2]

27. I've had one for ever and update it when appropriate

I had experience with making a decision to disconnect life support from a family member when I was very young, so I always knew how important it was to have one. Not only does it insure your wishes will be respected (if done properly) but it alleviates any questions or guilt your loved ones might have when having to decide for you.


It's not only important for you but can be very important for your loved ones.

[formernaderite]

28. Actually don't care what my family decides....

none of the immediate family are wingnuts....and I'm an atheist.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

29. What does one have to do to set up a will?

I would like to have one for my husband and I mostly to name potential guardians for our son if we both were to die.