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| Diana Cazier |
Have
you ever said something and then thought back on it and wondered what you were
thinking when that came out? Well, I
looked back on my story from last week and realized that you didn’t have the
back story on it. The story was told by
Grandpa himself who was very much alive and enjoying his grandson. I hope that I didn’t offend anyone. At least no one called me out on it.
This
week in the Deseret News there was a
series called “Life’s Final Journey”, this was a five-part series which started
last Sunday. It can still be accessed on
the Deseret News website. I truly wish
everyone would read it. Even with the
amount of time I have spent the last while thinking about these issues I
learned things and had other things reinforced.
The
first article was entitled How will I
die: Preparing your family, directing your care. All five articles address preparing your
family and yourself before the final decisions need to be made. This first one discusses advance directives
and making sure that your loved ones know what your wishes are so that they
have something on which to base their decisions should the need arise.
How will I die: Finding hope in hospice
was the second article. This article
supported much of what we have discussed in this forum. The point I wish to bring up here is the
great benefit to be found in hospice.
“We're not going to give up hope, we're going to change the focus of
hope.” This statement had a great impact
on me. End of life care should begin
earlier than the very end. As a process,
hospice can truly impact lives.
The
third article entitled How will I die: A
good life, a young death emphasizes that death comes to not only those that
have lived a long life.
The
fourth and fifth articles entitled Negotiating
death’s details and The high cost of
death deal with the decisions that come with the end of life. Pre-planning can go a long way to avoid
problems in the end.
This
note was included at the end of each article:
Editor's Note: Advance directive
and end-of-life planning is an important and neglected topic. Families often
shy away and when crisis comes, relatives are left trying to guess what someone
would have wanted. This week, Deseret Media Companies have joined a coalition
to raise awareness about the issue, in conjunction with passage of SCR2, which
asks Utahns to consider making their own decisions, appointing an agent and
having those tricky conversations.
I would like to encourage everyone to read these
articles. There is also a link above to
download advance directive forms that can help you make decisions about the
health care you would like to receive.
Deseret news link:
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