Preparation Advice

This is kind of boring but gets better as you read along.

Although it is impossible to be fully prepared for anyone's death, sudden or not, there are some things you really need to have in place. And I will buy a Starbucks Card to anyone out there who recognizes they are not immortal and have already taken care of these things for the people they love. Everyone has different desires on what happens when they get really sick or die. That is (of course) ok. But if you don't have it in writing in a legally supported manner, someone else can make any decisions they want for you.

Please be sure you have the following in place:

Durable Power of Attorney
Medical Power of Attorney
Do not resuscitate out of hospital (if you are so inclined)
Living Will
Will

It is also real smart to pre-pay (or at least make detailed decisions) about what happens to your dead body. Tom and I decided to pre-pay the Neptune Society for cremation. It worked out well. Pre-paying saved a couple hundred but most important I was not sitting at the hospice with Tom's body signing papers and giving out credit card information.

I'm going to ramble on about this for a few more minutes to really make the point. For 15 months or so after Tom's diagnosis things were great. Tom was intellectually and physically strong. And then, ever so slowly, things changed.

It was not safe for him to drive, his computer gave him trouble, telling time became hard, directionally he got confused, handwriting suffered then stopped, dialing a phone was no longer possible, buttons and zippers were too hard... I could go on and on and how this disease chipped away at Tom over days and weeks and months.

Tom and I saw it but we never believed that it was irreversible. A bunch of little set backs and if we worked harder we could catch up. News Years Eve Tom used a walker to say good night to Michael and Theresa. News Years Day he could not sit up in bed when John and Penny came to help me take him to the hospital. He never came home again.

Even the last month in the hospital the slipping was so slow and gradual -- all the while he was busting his butt to work so hard at his PT, OT, and speech therapies. Nicole and I saw it but did not know he was dying. But somewhere in that time period he could no longer tell us when he had to go to the bathroom. He could not sit up or roll over, he could not feed himself or use a straw. He slept more and more and rarely opened his eyes.

There was a last conversation but we did not know if was the last conversation. There was a last hug, a last responsive kiss, a last hang squeeze -- but we did not know it was the last.

The point, which I grant is well hidden, is that everyone thinks there will be time to have these "planning" conversations, even if someone is sick. And there is not. I promise.

I had to decide if Tom was going to take pills when he could no longer swallow. I had to decide if he was going to have a feeding tube when he could not eat, if he was going to get IV fluids when he could not drink. I had to decide if he would be resuscitated if he stopped breathing. I had to determine how much morphine he could get balancing pain management and the death it could cause.

Except I did not. Tom and I figured out all the rules beforehand. I was able to do what he wanted. That was one of the best blessings he gave me.

And as I write I am not eligible for my own Starbucks Card. My paperwork is not up to date. It is all done but now needs new names. Mine will be done by the end of March. Do your wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend/parent/friends/kids a huge favor. Don't make them decide. Having Tom die was so very hard. Thinking while it was happening would have been impossible.