Kansas Senior Press Service Weekly Newsletters Kansas Senior Press Service Weekly Newsletters By Steven Jeffers
Kansas Senior Press Service
On Wednesday, April 16, we invite you to join Americans across the country in talking to others about your future health care decisions and completing your advance directive. April 16 is a day of special focus because it is National Health Care Decisions Day.
One tool for managing these conversations is “Gift of Love,” a 20-page booklet prepared by Linda Crouse, MD, and me at the Shawnee Mission Medical Center Institute for Spirituality in Health. It offers common-sense, simple directions for sensitively communicating your wishes about physical pain, place of death, artificial life support, organ and tissue donation, spiritual matters, and decisions about financial and estate matters, especially in a time of illness or impending death. No one can predict when a life-threatening injury might occur, and few of us are prepared for a serious illness and its effect on families.
The “Gift of Love” encourages planning for potential health care problems by giving an advance directive to loved ones, family members, doctors, and attorneys in estate and trust planning, describing how you would like to be cared for even if you can’t speak.
According to Bill Colby, senior fellow in law and patient rights at the Center for Practical Bioethics, a Prairie Village resident, and author of Unplugged: Reclaiming Our Right to Die in America, “The ‘Gift of Love’ booklet is an excellent tool to help us navigate important conversations about aging and illness. I encourage you to give this booklet to family, friends, clients, and patients. Then, the next time you gather, set aside some time to talk about what you learned. That talk and this booklet are true gifts for those you love.”
Michael E. Nelson, MD, a pulmonologist and critical care specialist at the Shawnee Mission Medical Center, suggests we approach the topic by thinking in terms like these:
“You stand by the side of the hospital bed and a symphony of mechanical sounds plays in the background, occasionally interrupted by the admonishing wail of an alarm. While you see the chest rise and fall, there is little other evidence that your loved one is alive. What and who will help you decide whether to prolong what is now being termed ‘futile care’ by the medical staff? You have many questions, which the physician answers, but you are still uncertain what to do.
“One only need to imagine herself as the family member at the bedside, or, worse still, the patient in the bed, to recognize the importance of advance care planning. A previous conversation with a loved one may provide a clue as to his wishes, but, as memory fades with time, the words provide little direction. Other relatives may recall things differently, and their values may significantly differ from your own.
“Who, then, becomes the decision maker? Life is spent making many very important decisions: Who will I wed? Where will I live and work? When do I retire? Yet few take the time to provide direction for the last chapter of their life—their death. The decisions about medical care at the end of life should be made now, before the opportunity slips away. And those decisions should be communicated both orally and in written form, lest they are misinterpreted or lost, leaving one of life’s most important decisions to chance. Complete an advance directive. Give those you care about the ‘gift of love.’”
The “Gift of Love” is available at the Institute for Spirituality in Health at Shawnee Mission Medical Center, 9100 W. 74th St., Shawnee Mission, KS 66204. More information is available by calling the hospital, 913-676-8104, or visiting its Web site, www.shawneemission.org.
Steven Jeffers is director of the Institute for Spirituality in Health at ShawneeMissionMedicalCenter.
By Dan Robles
Kansas Senior Press Service
The importance of residential lighting was recently discussed at a Crime Prevention and Safety Committee meeting. We agreed that a question we often hear during residential surveys and crime prevention presentations is, “Do I illuminate the outside of my residence at night, or do I leave the exterior of the house dark so a burglar can’t see around the house?”
The Crime Prevention Unit suggests lighting up, and offers the following lighting security tips to help reduce and deter residential burglaries:
Interior and exterior lighting pays for itself in a dollars sense, and also pays for itself in peace of mind for yourself and your neighborhood. Remember to “Light It Up and Lock It Up” while you’re home and away!
Dan Robles is an officer in the Crime Prevention Unit of the Prairie Village Police Department.
By Dave Farson
Kansas Senior Press Service
The call was brief.
“Dad died this morning. Do you want to talk to Mom?”
My father died! I wanted to yell out the news. I didn’t want any response; I just needed to yell.
An ordinary man had passed. This kind of event happens every day. It’s not news, yet it is our news. He was a good, kind-hearted man. He lived, he worked, he died. His was a simple story.
I have to be careful not to own the story. He was the father of my sisters, husband to my mother, and my dad. He was a shared figure, a community spirit. My loss is our loss.
When a man of age passes, there is ambivalence. Part of me felt a sense of loneliness and part of me was relieved. No longer would he have to suffer the indignity of not being able to walk, remember, or talk well. In many ways, it was his time. I will miss my father, and I am happy for him. I assume my sisters have similar feelings.
During our final conversation, I said, “Dad, it takes courage to stay here and try to get well.”
He looked at me for a long moment and then replied, “I don’t think I have it.”
Our mother is in emotional turmoil. Her partner of 68 years is gone. In 1939, they ran away to be married. Her father’s reaction was, “Bill, I expect you to take care of her now.” For 65 of their married years, he kept his promise. During the last three years, she had to take care of him.
Bill was born in 1919. That means he grew up during the Depression. He learned to work hard. He feared being broke and not keeping his promise to her father. But when a man works long and hard, something or someone is neglected. Our father was not home much. He was not a father who listened to our young woes or was available for advice. But he made sure we did not live in poverty. In that sense, our father’s life was framed by the suffering of his country. And our emotional lives now are framed by what happened to him in his youth.
Even within a larger picture, Bill was a good man. He helped others when he could. Everyone remembers his generosity, his kindness. The hundreds who came to his wake and funeral had stories to tell about when he had helped them or others. It was gratifying, as his son, to hear all the good things people had to say. I hope his kindness can be passed on through me. It’s a responsibility I take seriously.
The obituary is published, the funeral is held, we stay together for a day, and then life is expected to go on. My mother says, “I cry because I can’t do anything else.”But we are to go, do, and celebrate as best we can. We are to hold onto our dreams or create new ones.
In the name of my father, I wish my mother well. In her 85th year, she must learn to live alone. She must create a new identity for herself and create new relationships. It will not be easy, but she is strong. She comes from hardy stock and, in time, will be OK.
In the name of my father, I wish my sisters well. Our culture expects them to go directly back to work, so their personal roads will have emotional potholes.
In the name of my father, I must accept that I am his son. I must remember his strengths and adopt them as my own. In loss there are new beginnings for us all.
Dave Farson, of Overland Park, taught at ShawneeMissionNorthHigh School for 33 years. He is now a freelance writer.
These articles are also available electronically at the Center on Aging Website: http://www2.kumc.edu/coa/Senior_Press_Article/Topic_Index.htm