Five Wishes brought to Life

Gail Rae from the mom and me journals dot net has applied the Five Wishes to her mother's recent passing, wondering how each question relates to the discussions she had with her mother before her death. It's a beautiful post and a great embodiment of just how the Five Wishes framework can work.  

Palliative Care Grand Rounds

If you've been wonder what palliative-care-minded bloggers are writing about, here's your chance to find out ...

I'm a little behind on posting this, but this month's Palliative Care Grand Rounds is up at Pallimed Arts & Humanities. If you're not familiar with it, PCGR is a monthly blog entry that highlights what has been going on in cyberspace regarding end-of-life issues, palliative care, death and dying, etc. 

Next month, PCGR will be hosted by Death Club for Cuties (gotta love that name!). 

Dying to Live out on DVD

Ben Mittleman's exploration of facing his own mortality: Dying to Live, is now available on DVD. I highly recommend checking it out, if for no other reason than we can all occasionally use a reminder that we are all capable of so much more than we think. 

Filling out my Living Will

Which lines would you initial?

"If in the judgement of my physician, I am suffering with a terminal condition from which I am expected to die within six months, even with available life-sustaining treatment provided in accordance with prevailing standards of medical care:

__I request that all treatments other than those needed to keep me comfortable be discontinued or withheld and my physician allow me to die as gently as possible;

OR

__I request that I be kept alive in this terminal condition using available life-sustaining treatment (THIS SELECTION DOES NOT APPLY TO HOSPICE CARE.)"

For me, it's pretty easy here. I initialed the first option. If I knew I was terminal, I would only want comfort care. The next question gets into more gray areas for me though.

"If, in the judgment of my physician, I am suffering with an irreversible condition so that I cannot care for myself or make decisions for myself and am expected to die without life-sustaining treatment provided in accordance with prevailing standards of care:

__I request that all treatments other than those needed to keep me comfortable be discontinued or withheld and my physician allow me to die as gently as possible;

OR

__I request that I be kept alive in this irreversible condition using available life-sustaining treatment. (THIS SELECTION DOES NOT APPLY TO HOSPICE CARE.)"

I want to initial the first line, but I also really want to know what the condition would be. Doesn't everyone? I'm lucky; I have a great medical advocate as my medical power of attorney. I'm wondering how other people have worked through these topics though. 

Another Harvest Moon

I was alerted to this film in the comments section of a recent post. 

And I just have to say, it's about freakin' time someone made a movie about life in a retirement home/assisted-living facility. 

Also, it looks like the movie deals with quality-of-life issues, withholding treatment, and the right to die. I'm very curious to see it, and I hope others go to the movie and have lots of conversation afterwards. 

Five Wishes

Just found out about this website, Aging with Dignity. 

They offer a living will written in everyday language, and they call it Five Wishes—because it helps you lay out your five wishes about end-of-life care.

*Who you want to make healthcare decisions for you when you can't make them

*The kind of medical treatment you want or don't want

*How comfortable you want to be

*How you want people to treat you

*What you want your loved ones to know

If you're looking to fill out your own living will, this is a very accessible resource. Please note, it meets the legal requirements in 40 states. But, the site also has a handy little map to show which states accept this form. Link to it here. 

Update on Death with Dignity in Washington State

Just a short piece in the Seattle Times giving some stats on what has happened under the first six months of Washington state's Death with Dignity Act. 

Twenty two people have received prescriptions for life-ending drugs, and it seems 16 of them have since died. The article cites sources that claim 11 are known to have died from using the medication, as opposed to natural causes. (The state will not release information on how exactly specific people have died because of patient confidentiality laws.)

That's about all the article says, except for a couple of quotes from groups on either side. But it's only a few quick paragraphs if you want to check it out.