Don't come running to me when you're all sick, altered and drugged up!

I was reminded by Jared Porter in the comments of my earlier post that today, April 16th is Advance Directives Awareness Day. He pointed me to an excellent post on how to get those conversations started. If you haven't done yours yet, why not? Seriously folks, get it done! I don't want you calling me up to your hospital room to notarize stuff you've got no business signing because you're too sick, demented or drugged up to be thinking clearly. I'll have to decline and then we'll both be sad. And your kids will have to decide whether or not to pull the plug and we don't want THAT now do we? Do a Living Will, Healthcare Surrogate Designation and a Power of Attorney now, today, while you've got sense enough to document your wishes.

Something to talk about...

It can be a very difficult conversation to get started but it's one you just can't afford to ignore. Talking to your elder parents about advance directives is a delicate and sometimes touchy subject. No one wants to be reminded of their mortality or to think about what might happen in the event of a medical emergency and older folks often may feel as though it's just one more part of their lives that they are losing control over. It's hard but with as much compassion and understanding as you can muster up it's something that really should be done sooner rather than later.

When I worked at a local hospital I was often called to go up to a unit to notarize powers of attorney and other documents for people who clearly were in no mental state to be making those decisions. It would break my heart to have to refuse notary services for someone who desperately needed to have them done so that their personal business could be handled while they were incapacitated but there was nothing I could do legally to help them. The time to make those decisions is while you are still in a clear and cognizant mental state, not when it has become an emergency and you are ill and possibly even sedated. Here is an excellent article on advance directives that may be able to help you get that conversation going. It really is something you have to talk about. Today.