Dying In Dignity

My husband and I decided to get our Durable Power of Attorney done since we’re now in mid-life

Photo by Gert Stockmans on Unsplash

In my country, we call this Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA), This is…

‘a legal document and a deed, which allows a person who is at least 21 years of age (‘Donor’), to voluntarily appoint one or more persons (‘Donee(s)’) to make decisions and act on his/her behalf if he/she loses mental capacity one day. A Donee can be appointed to act in the two broad areas of personal welfare and/or property & affairs matters.​’*

For those who have adult children, it might be easier as they can be appointed to be the Donee. But for my husband and I, we don’t have any.

My husband and I could still appoint each other as our primary Donee, but we’re encouraged to also have a replacement Donee in the event that our primary Donee is no longer around or incapacitated.

For my husband, he chose one of his sisters to be the replacement Donee. But since I have no siblings, I chose my best friend, Molly.

[embed]What Makes A True Friendship? Most friendships form due to proximitymedium.com

An LPA is unlike doing up a Will. A Will is easy, so to speak, because it’s just a matter of distributing our assets to our beneficiaries of our choosing when we pass on.

An LPA, on the other hand, is essentially a living Will. We’re literally giving someone the power to decide how we would live on a day-to-day basis, and how our monies are to be spent.

This LPA could kick in when we’re either in a coma, sustained a stroke that causes us to be unable to communicate our needs and desires, have Dementia/Alzheimer’s etc.

As a financial advisor, I’ve seen and heard about the dilemma of loved ones having to make the hard decision of pulling the plug. I didn’t want my husband or Molly to be in any doubt about this.

I told them both (separately) that if I were to ever be in a coma, they are free to pull the plug the next day, because I’m ready to be with Jesus. They do not need to contemplate how much more time they have to appropriately wait, as long as the doctors inform them that I can’t survive without life support.

The last thing they have to worry about is what other people think, because I’ve already given my explicit instructions.

The only time they could delay this is if they felt God telling them very strongly that He is about to work a miracle in me. Hey, always good to keep my options open for God to do His thing right? 😁

Interestingly for my husband, he said he’d like me to wait for up till 6 months to pull the plug, because he’d like to give God a chance to work a miracle to revive him. Unless of course, we run out of funds first. 😅

Making decisions for coma is the easy one. I find that it gets complicated when we’re conscious but no longer have the mental capacity to make our own decisions. It’s like we’re locked in our physical bodies but unable to express ourselves.

I find this more torturous for the patient as well as the caregiver.

As I was seriously pondering about this, I realised what I’m most afraid of if I were ever in such a predicament.

I’m afraid to lose my dignity.

If you read my article about being a dignified woman, you might get an idea of the importance of how I present myself.

[embed]What It Means To Be A Dignified Woman This is a little piece to expound on a previous article I postedmedium.com

I’m not saying I have to always dress well even if I’m unwell. But I really want to avoid drooling in the presence of guests, smelling of pee or poop, peeing or pooping in the presence of guests and looking like a crazy woman.

I get that I may not have control over those faculties if that time comes. But I hope my caregivers will know the importance of this to me to help maintain my dignity as much as possible.

Have you done your LPA yet? Have you thought about what you’d really like to maintain about yourself if you lose your mental capacity?

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