Over the past couple of months, I have worked with several clients regarding the same thing: A health care directive. This is a newer, fancier name for a “Living Will,” which gives a person the ability to make health care decisions even if he or she is incapacitated, first by designating an “agent” to make health care decisions, and second by itemizing life-prolonging procedures that the person would not want if recovery is not possible.
This document has real meaning for me, as my grandmother and great-grandmother were both stricken with catastrophic health events from which neither recovered. Neither of them had a health care directive. Things would have been much easier had they signed that one little document that would have told the doctors – and us – what they wanted or didn’t want under the circumstances.
I remember when my great-grandmother – 102 at the time – was lying in the hospital, unable to respond, surrounded by her family. She hung on for three weeks, while her children, 82 and 81 at the time, hovered with furrowed brows around her bedside, asking the doctor if Mama would get better, and looking, in all their shortness and grayness, like little old Munchkins who were hoping to see the Wizard.
They, of course, told the doctors to do everything they could do; I, however, was saying a prayer that our wait would not be long, for her sake and for ours. How much better it would have been if we had possessed a document that told us not to insert an IV, that told us that her life had been long and well-lived, that told us to be grateful to God for the many years we had come to count on her presence as the driving force in our family.
Ten years later, my grandmother suffered the same fate, and without the same document. Fortunately, my mother had learned from her grandmother’s death that remaining alive was not the same thing as living. Comforted by our family doctor, who assured us that Bubba was not suffering, nor would she, my mother bravely asked that Bubba’s life not be prolonged by machines that pumped and made noises and required poking with needles. I was not present when Mother made that decision, but I was and am still grateful that she did.
Another family was not quite so lucky. Their mother, age 94 and suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease, was placed in the hospital because of an unrelated, but deadly, illness. Two of the children wanted to let nature take its course, but their sister disagreed. Modern medicine worked its magic, and she lived another two years, never uttering another word, nor having one moment of coherent conversation with anyone she loved. Her children’s inability to come together at such a difficult time caused a rift that continues to this day.
So I am a proponent of these Health Care Directives, which relieves families of burdens and decisions they don’t want to have to make. If you don’t currently have a Health Care Directive, you can get one from www.mobar.org, which provides them at no cost. They look overwhelming, but do not let the document’s appearance deter you. Only four pages require you to make decisions: the first thing you must decide is who will make your health care decisions in your stead, in the event you are unable to make them yourself; the second decision involves a series of questions as to what procedures you do or do not want in the event that you will not recover from whatever has caused your incapacity. Your decisions while you are healthy will guide your “agent” in making your decisions when you are not.
This is a simple fix for something that can be life changing for those around you. Sign the directive, show it to your family, and tell them that you love them.
