Archive for the ‘Advance Directives’ Category

Wrenching Choices At The End Of Life

Posted on June 18th, 2013 by karen

"Give me a good glass of wine, play me some Mozart..."

by Joan Blumenfeld, MS, LPC

If I’ve told my children once, I’ve told them a thousand times. “When I’m near the end of my life, give me a good glass of wine, play me some Mozart, and LEAVE ME ALONE!”

I’m being only partly facetious. The wine and the Mozart are easy. Leaving me alone without trying to fix me is the wrenching part. Believe me, I know. I muddled through this process with three family members whom I loved deeply, and I’ve watched families of my frail, elderly clients go through the same experience.

Even when advance directives and living wills are as specific as they can be regarding Do Not Resuscitate orders, feeding tubes and ventilators, families still struggle with the decisions. There are conflicting views within the family, as well as conflicting medical advice, not to mention the uncertainty and fear in their own hearts and minds.

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Older Women Living Alone

Posted on September 13th, 2012 by karen

by Joan Blumenfeld, MS, LPC

It is a sad truth that most elderly women end up living alone in their later years. Eighty-year-old Lauren was no exception.

She had been married for many years and divorced for almost as long, and though her life companion died several years before I met her, Lauren was blessed with a rich, full life.

She nurtured close relationships with her children, her family, her friends and colleagues, and she treasured her independence and freedom. Still remarkably healthy, Lauren was in charge of her money, making her own decisions about how to spend it or save it, without having to account to anyone. She planned vacations and traveled to suit her interests. Her time was her own. She made social engagements with the people she liked to be with. She selected the TV programs she wanted to watch, and she planned meals to suit her own timing, tastes and appetite.

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Advanced Directives: Honoring My Grandfather’s Wishes

Posted on August 23rd, 2011 by karen

Honoring My Grandfather's Wishes

by Patty Capuciati Conwell

One weekend in 1990, while I was pregnant with my first child, the phone rang and my father was on the line.  My grandfather had had a massive heart attack.

With great concern, I rushed to the Emergency Room.

As the nurse in the family, I knew it was my job to assess the medical situation and report back to everyone, and to make certain that my grandfather was receiving the best possible care.

The paramedics had found Grandpa unresponsive and unable to completely oxygenate his blood on his own.  So they had intubated him – a tube was placed down his airway to facilitate breathing – en route to  the ER.  At the hospital, the physician explained to me the gravity of his prognosis.  There was severe damage to Grandpa’s heart – more than half of the heart muscle had been deprived of oxygen during the attack.  The best-case scenario was that he would only be able to live bed-to-chair, as his heart would simply not support or withstand additional activity.  My grandfather would never get his life back.

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Start A Financial Conversation

Posted on April 26th, 2011 by karen

by Joan Blumenfeld, MS, LPC

Our elderly mother was beside herself.  Our 85-year-old father was dipping into their retirement funds to buy junk bonds on margin.  Then he was going to Mother requesting cash from their savings accounts to cover his losses.  She was in a panic about this seemingly surefire formula for financial disaster.

Though neither of us is a lawyer or financial advisor, my brother and I agreed that we had to intervene.  And so we did.

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Keeping Advance Directives In Mind And In Hand

Posted on March 29th, 2011 by karen

by Joan Blumenfeld, MS, LPC

Our mother had advance directives, but no one in the hospital was paying attention to them.

She was lying on a gurney waiting to go into the operating room to have her pacemaker battery surgically replaced when the attending nurse asked if my mother had any allergies.  Indeed she did!  She was deathly allergic to penicillin and bee stings.  But the fact that the nurse did not know about the allergies set off my alarm.

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