Living Will

My disclaimer:

I am not an attorney. I do not know which form is legal in your state, or in the state that you vacation in (as they may be different). I encourage you to confirm your own situation.

We will start with the term Living Will.

According to Wikipedia a Living Will may also be called an Advance Directive, an Advance Decision, or a Health Care Directive and is the oldest form. Basically this is a statement of your instructions specifying what actions you would like taken in your healthcare once you are no longer able to make those decisions due to illness or incapacity. (Please note that this may not include becoming mentally incapacitated.) This form is effective as long as you remain alive, and should not take the place of your "Last Will and Testament."

A Living Will (Health Care Directive) does NOT appoint another person to make those decisions for you.

This link takes you to one of many sites where you can write your own Living Will for free. There are many sites out there, and most seem to charge a nominal fee.

The Search for Terminology

Living Wills, Advance Health Care Directives, Durable Power of Attorney... what do all these terms mean? What are the similarities? The differences? What will work for me?

I will be using links to Wikipedia's definitions.

Whether or not you value Wikipedia as a good source of information is your call. What it will do during our search is give us a consistency to the pages we are looking at, which hopefully will make things a little easier when defining these confusing items. I encourage you to use your own favorite search engine to further explore the myriad of information that is available.

I will also be referencing other sources within this blog. My intention is to give simple, clean references. Also I will provide links to printable forms for your use.

If you haven't searched these terms before I think that you will find it interesting to learn about each one, to find out which one is the one you will need in the future. It will also open up topics for the discussion that I hope you will be having with your family.

The Elephant

So.

You just got home from visiting Granny at the nursing home. (Easy to use 'Granny' as my fictitious subject because of all the talk of pushing 'Granny off a cliff' recently in discussions about a national health care.)

You are sitting around in the kitchen/living room and you are having THE conversation with your spouse/partner.

You tell them that:

"I never want to be in that situation."

"I never want to live in a nursing home."

"When it comes to that point when I no longer have a good Quality of Life, help me out..."

"I want to die in my own bed, in my sleep, with my family at my side."

For my husband and I, the conversation goes "When that day comes, we just have to remember that 'today is the day' we step off the end of the boat..."

Or maybe the conversation will be different from the one that I imagine, where "everything that's possible" should be done, that there are new "medical miracles" happening every day, that the "power of life and death reside with my God".

But it won't happen like that. The decisions won't be ours. It will be up to others to make the determination of where we spend our final days. It might be our children who make the call, or it might be a case worker at a hospital who finds us a bed to transfer to. There will be that point where we will cease to be in control of our life. Where having that conversation way back when, in the kitchen or the living room, with my spouse or my partner, my family or my friends won't have any real meaning at all.

My Little Blue Pill is intended to be a discussion of how to maintain that control of your own life. Giving ideas and links to legal documents, filling out the paper work, crossing the T's and most importantly opening up those conversations with your family and your friends. That will be the crucial part of keeping control of your life and of your "end of life" wishes.

I invite you to join me in this conversation, by making comments on this blog, by sending emails, by sharing your feelings and your ideas, your discoveries and your solutions.

Next Up

Now that you know my feelings about Freedom of Choice, let's move on.

I believe that there are places in this world for people like Jack Kevorkian. I believe that if a person has made the decision to end their life that the next step should be accessible. If that means that the services of someone like Jack Kevorkian are needed then he or someone like him should be there.

I am not here to persuade you to believe in what I do. What I am doing is trying to be as 'up front' as I can, to let you know exactly where I stand on these issues so that there are no misunderstandings.

My intention is to open this whole subject of 'living will' for some serious discussion. Because this question is on the news every day. Because this question is brought up between spouses and partners. Because this question is asked every time you are admitted to a hospital. Because this question needs to be discussed with your entire family. Because this question needs a reality attached to it. Because this question is the biggest elephant in the room right now, and too many are choosing to ignore it.

I believe that knowing where I stand on these other issues will make it easier for us to have this conversation.

I encourage comments. I encourage opposition. I encourage thoughts and ideas.

Freedom of Choice

Let's talk about "Freedom of Choice".

I believe that a woman should have the choice, whether that choice is to end a pregnancy or to carry the fetus/infant to term. All the old arguments are there, for justification, for rationalization. The bottom line is that it should be the woman's choice, and no one should be able to make that choice for her. That includes the law. It is unfortunate that legislation like Roe v Wade even needs to be on the books, let alone that it is still disputed to this day.

I don't have a preference for the practice of abortion, and view it as a pretty horrific event in a woman's life. Until relatively recently history gave us abortion as the only alternative for termination of a pregnancy. Now there is the "morning after" pill and another "pill" (formerly known as RU-486) that can end pregnancy up to 49 weeks. It is now available in the US under the name of Mifeprex and requires a prescription.

Decades ago it was a rusty hanger, a back woods "doctor" and a prayer that not too much damage was done and you would live to see the light of day.

We have come a long way for women's rights, the right to choose. Abortions will be sought out, no matter what is 'legal', no matter your personal opinion, either in a clinic or through a back door.

It is my belief that if there is a 'safe' technology in existence, then make it available.

Serious?

"In 1997, however, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Americans who want to kill themselves -- but are physically unable to do so -- have no Constitutional right to end their lives."

Let's Get One Thing Straight

I believe in "Death with Dignity".

I believe in "Freedom of Choice".

I believe that these issues are personal.

I believe that these decisions should be between you, your family, your physician and your God.

I don't believe that government should be involved by any means.

That said, lets continue.