A Living Will

Do you have a living will? That was a question asked of me before I had my gall bladder surgery two years ago. It really freaked me out. So, when I pre-registered for my surgery, I produced one.

As we talked about it, I wanted to say “Dr Bollick said this was A SNAP! Why do you keep asking me this and what more is there to this that I am not getting??” Then, when I got there the day of the surgery, they could not find it and made a HUGE deal out of it. That really did not do much to instill confidence, but we all got through it. (And, as Dr Bollick said, it WAS a snap)

Truth is, I have been in those hospital halls long enough to know that anything can happen, and those nurses were only doing their jobs when they made the big deal about the living will. And I appreciate them for it. We are fortunate here in Florence to have the level of medical care available to us. I have been in the new part of the Pavilion Tower at McLeod several times lately, and it is really nice and MODERN.

Back to the topic: Do YOU have a living will? Have you ever thought about the extent to which you would want your families and doctors to go in preserving life? Now, ALL of us want them to do EVERYTHING POSSIBLE to save us in an emergency, but what about life support when there is zero quality of life? At what point would you want your family to stop and allow nature to take over?

A hard thought for younger adults today, but something I see all of the time. You might want to think about it and write something down. You could be saving your family from a horrible decision by having a living will . . . Do it for THEM!