This week I have found myself sitting in a hospital room with my husband and I have had a great deal of time to think. Yesterday I was asked to be a witness for another patient’s medical power of attorney and living will and it made me think. Do you have your medical power of attorney? Have you talked about how you would like your last days to be? Have you written out your living will?
A few years ago there was that case of the Florida woman that was in a vegetative state and her husband wanted to remove her from life support but her parents petitioned the courts to keep her on life support. If they had made out a living will there would have been no need for the long drawn out public court battle that ended up in all the news.
When I was diagnosed with breast cancer one if the first things I did was make a living will and a medical power of attorney. Now at the age of 35 I had never prepared one before because I had never thought I would need one but as soon as I heard the cancer diagnosis I made it a point to make one. Now if you are anything like I was you may not really think you need one. Maybe you are young and healthy so the thought may never have entered your mind.
Consider this if you are driving down to work or the mall one day and you are in an accident. With all the things that your family would be going through should they have to debate whether you should be left on respirators if the doctors all say that you are not going to recover? Should your loved ones have to feel guilty about removing life support or should they be able to do it with the peace of mind knowing what your wishes are?