Engage With Grace Provides Valuable Tool for End-of-Life Discussion

Carol, you summarize this issue so well: our denial, an almost physical inability to speak about death. Not death as an abstract, but death at its most personal. The death of family members. Our own death. I'm glad you've been an outspoken advocate for making your end-of-life issues known. And Engage with Grace, as you say, gives all of us who choose to access this project the ability to do what we know has to be done, what we've put off doing, what we should put off no longer: communicating our end-of-life requests with those who'll have the responsibility to implement them. Thanks for the gentle push - I've answered the Five Questions at Engage with Grace. - PJH

Thank you Carol

It's amazing that in times we live in that so many family members don't want to talk about death or make plans. My husband and I have had this discussion many times. It's strange in our circumstances since we spent our first wedding anniversary at Brook Army Hospital in San Antoino with him having his first open heart surgery. Wow what a way to spend a first anniversary and one we will never forget. I almost lost him and thank God he survived but it was the beginning of 28 years of marriage that would undergo so many life altering events. My husband has had five heart attacks and then his lower aorta closing and three operations to open that and then the loss of both legs within six months of each other. Then if you count my two heart attacks and emergency hysteroctemy and double mastectomy, it has been a roller coaster ride. Now alzheimers. We have tried many times to talk to our children about death and even though they have been through so much with us both they still refuse to talk about it. Our 19 year old granddaughter is the only one willing to listening and knows our wishes. Our wills are in order as are powers attorneys and we both know what the other one wants. My husband fears death, I don't say I understand it because I don't fear death. I don't want to rush it but I also don't want to be put on life support. I have put on paper that should I develp Alzheimers that I chose to go to a Alzheimers facility. I said early I had two heart attacks I actually have a heart condition that puts my heart out of rhytymn and it has put me at deaths door twice, my daughter was with me both times it happened, she is a trauma nurse. I had gone into arythymia and my heart was beating it's self to death. I basically died until they shocked me and brought me back. I didn't see a light nor angels, what I did feel is what made me want to go, no pain and a complete feeling of peace, joy and happiness. What I remember is my daughters voice begging me not to go and to come back, after a lot of medication and them shocking my heart I  was back and felt a feeling of loss but her love for me helped me hold on, so you see I have no fear of dying and that is why I chose a living will that is iron clad and my wishes will be followed, my life will not be prolonged with machines or drugs. Yes if my heart gets out of rhytymn again they will treat that but no machines. My husband has faced death many times but he has chosen to have them do everything possible to save his life. His wishes will be followed. He is living with Alzheimers and congestive heart failure and still choses to live until the very last. He wants to stay home and I will follow his wishes. I will do everything in my power to make his last days as happy and filled with love as possible. Everyone tells me to put him in a nursing home it will be easier on me. I cannot do this he dosen't want it. If he becomes more then I can handle then I will have to act accordingly but I am trying to fulfill my promise to keep him home. He is a 100% disabled veteran and his doctor there has even told me that placing him there will be a death sentence because of over crowding and understaffing so how can I do that. We are not wealthy and I cannot place him in an Alzheimers home that I would want to where he would be happy and around others that have the same problems. If I could give him that I would but since I can't I will continue to care for him myself to the best of my ability and follow his wishes. Living with and loving my husband in Texas. Connie

Five questions are an excellent start, but where do you go from there?

What we really want is a peaceful transition for both ourselves and our families.

I have created a video, written books, and offer a survey -- for those interested.

(Sorry if this sounds self-promoting, but we are a non-profit organization.)

Invitation: View the 10-minute, on-line video, At the Bedside of a Peaceful Transition, at http://vimeo.com/2153396.

Stanley A. Terman, PhD, MD
Board Certified in Psychiatry
Medical and Executive Director, Caring Advocates
www.CaringAdvocates.org
2730 Argonauta St.; Carlsbad, CA 92009
Ph: 800 647 3223 or 760 431 2233
FAX: 800 919 3613; SKYPE: stan_terman
Author of The BEST WAY to Say Goodbye: A Legal Peaceful Choice at the End of Life
and Lethal Choice (a medical thriller),
and co-developer of the combined document, the Physician's Orders to Permit Natural Dying/Advance Directive to Permit Natural Dying
Coming soon: Peaceful Transitions: How to Die When and How YOU Want

Also of interest is a survey that enlightens as it gathers information:
Is it Moral to Permit Natural Dying for Patients in End-Stage Dementia?
Survey # 2 at: http://www.caringadvocates.org/surveys.php is in the middle of the page.

Just today, driving home from visiting my father at the nursing home, this topic came up.  My husband unconditionally stated that he doesn't want to have his life prolonged if it came to the point that he had to be fed by a gastronasal tube or PEG.  I recalled that in a previous post you mentioned something to the effect that when the time comes, most people actually choose to live longer even when they are miserably sick, and told this to my husband.  I don't think any of us can predict in the present how we will actually feel about ending our life in the future if given the choice to prolong it.  I agree that it is important to make it easier for our children, but having recently been in the position of losing a parent, I can say that the end is never easy, regardless whether you are following your loved one's wishes or not.  Having the decision taken out of your hands does not minimize the anguish or lessen the feeling of wishing there was something more you could have done.