Tuesday, September 8, 2009

End of life decisions

I have definite wants and don't wants when it comes to end of life choices. My family, however, is not clairvoyant and I must communicate my wishes to them and to our family physician. In order to do this, the following documents are needed. I can clearly spell out what treatments I want and what I do not want.

1. Advance medical directive
2. Medical Power of Attorney
3. Will

If you don't have these 3 documents, you can easily obtain them from your family attorney, your spiritual advisor, or the Chaplain's office at your local hospital.

Finally, be sure that your family knows where to locate these important documents.

2 comments:

Grace. said...

Very important documents. Back in March, when I had two days between diagnosis and open heart surgery, you shoulda seen me scramble to update my will, and make sure my health directives were on file. It would have been so much easier if I'd been prepared in the first place--I'd been putting off the will update for over a year--guess I never figured I could get run over, struck by lightening, or felled by heart attack.

Florence said...

It is so easy to put these things off but they can save you and your loved ones untold anguish if everyone simply knows what you/they want.