This post has been shared by the AdvoConnection Blog. It was written with a patient-client audience in mind, but might be useful to you, too.
It is provided so you can find it in a search here at myAPHA.org, but you’ll need to link to the original post to read it in its entirety.
Link to the original full length post.
An “Advance” New Year’s Resolution
Happy 2020 to you, my “patient” readers. I wish you much good health and happiness and importantly, peace-of-mind in this new year. OK – yes – it’s mid-January, so it might be a wee-bit late to be listing our resolutions for the year, but that doesn’t make this piece of advice any less important. I want to share something with you that has brought ME some huge peace of mind. And I’m going to challenge you to find some peace-of-mind for yourself, too. It takes a little bit of face-time with reality, and a bit of effort, too. But believe me. It’s well worth it! In 2006, my husband and I married. This is a second marriage for us both, and since we both have adult children, we realized quite early on that it was a smart move to have our wills made up, making sure our kids would get their due, that family items would stay in the right family, etc. And so we did. We found an attorney who could help us set up our wills, so that was squared away. But in the process, I learned that having our wills drawn up was really just the start! Wills don’t come into play until AFTER a loved one has passed away. They address assets – not healthcare. Those were my very early days of writing on patient empowerment and advocacy topics and wow – did I ever get an education! I had never really understood about the need for other healthcare related documents like DNRs, or healthcare proxies, or living wills, or POLST or MOLST. They all fall under the title of “advance directives“, and if any of those document names are unfamiliar to you, then you need an education too: Find descriptions of “advance directives” here. Wills address what happens AFTER life. But they don’t address what happens DURING life – at the end of life. So… how do we make our wishes known then? Like – what if I don’t want to be kept on life support under some circumstances? Or what if I do? How will anyone know? Especially if I am in a coma or have lost my cognition… what then? The time to make sure those decisions are clear is when they are. Documenting our choices while we are still healthy and capable is the key. And that’s what “advance” directives do. So…