In our culture, death is not embraced, and thus, it isn’t talked about. Too often, people are in crisis before they begin to think about what they want. I don’t want to repeat what has been said before, but it is SO TRUE that death, when handled correctly, can be a much better experience than people think.

My 73 year old grandmother has buried all of her siblings and parents, none of which had wills or living trusts. What an absolute headache it was for her and such an unnecessary burden. We’ve all learned that the hard way.

A slight aside, my local paper had an absolutely touching story of a family’s burial of their father. This is a great insight into how openly accepting and coping with a loved one’s impending death can be deeply rewarding.
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_13861379?source=most_viewed&nclick_check=1

I’m worried though. My brother has all the legal authority should my mother become unable to decide for herself. He’s a fundamentalist Pentecostal, my mother is a new-agey Anglican. According to him she’s going to hell. I really hope her DNR trumps his power of attorney if it comes down to it. I can see him ignoring her wishes in order to get a last crack at converting her.

It would have been interesting to get a doctor on camera to explain why he/she did all the tests etc, but I do think it would boil down to covering their ass. My father-in-law who is a general practitioner would also agree with that statement.

He also would put a lot of blame on higher medical costs on nursing homes etc. According to him, they are the worst bunch. Often times they will turf patients to the hospital so they can free up a bed when the patient has only minor issues. Also, the in house doctors routinely ignore the care instructions from the general practitioners who have been meeting with the patients for the longest time and know the patients wishes.

It is interesting though to see the talk returning to rationed health-care making it’s way back into the foray. When the discussion was first brought up, there seemed to be a lot of promises made that there would be no rationing of health-care. But finally the truth emerges. There is not enough money to NOT have a rationed system.

While death panels are a tasteless way of describing what ultimately has to happen, the truth is that someone has to make the tough decision of what will be paid for and what will not.

Not that there’s ever any way to make it easier — it wasn’t, and 12 years of watching him get sicker did nothing to prepare us for it — but I often wonder if things might have been slightly more, I don’t know, comfortable had we all taken a little more time to explore the topic in advance.

Human nature, I guess. Either way, may we all know only happies in future. This loss thing is really tough to bear.

Not to sound morbid but I just feel like this world already has a serious overpopulation problem and I don’t want to contribute to that by staying alive when I was supposed to die. And living with a disability combined with a massive amount of debt just doesn’t fit my quality of life standards.