Living wills, greyhounds and goalposts

National Healthcare Decisions Day – April 16, 2015By John G. Carney, MEd, President and CEOCenter for Practical BioethicsFor years, I’ve been curious to know whether people fail to complete living wills and avoid naming a healthcare agent out of procrastination or a false sense of confidence that they have plenty of time to do it later. Reality is, if you don’t do it when you don’t have to, it’s not likely to go well when you do. Naming someone during a time of crisis to speak on your behalf can be downright cruel, especially when you’ve not shared much about the things that are really important to you.Share What’s ImportantWhat are those things? Well, they aren’t scary or monumental. They include things like how important laughing, talking, sharing and “just being” are to you. Don’t get all tied up in feeding tubes. Instead think about what sharing a meal means to you. Is it a means to an end or an end in itself? I once shared a house with an older-than-me bachelor and swore when he ate at home he never cooked anything that didn’t come in a box and could go in a microwave. I, on the other hand, started just about every meal sautéing fresh onions and garlic in olive oil. Food had entirely different meanings to us, and that became starkly evident to me when we talked about his dad’s early onset Alzheimer’s and how differently he approached the question of feeding tubes when the difficult q...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Tags: Health Care syndicated Source Type: blogs