FAMILY MEMBER: She’s been fighting cancer for five years, twice. She has emphysema of the lungs real bad. It’s gotten worse, they said, since she’s been in here, and right now she is fighting a bad stroke. They are not sure, but they are saying something like it could affect her left side and maybe her brain.
BETTY ROLLIN, correspondent: Did she leave any instructions about what to do?
FAMILY MEMBER: No, she did not.
ROLLIN: And that’s a major problem, says Dr. Jeff Gordon, an internist at Grant Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio. Dr. Gordon has had dying patients who have not made their wishes known and haven’t realized that some extreme measures are almost always futile.
Asking if someone has left “the instructions” is creepy. Either they have, or they haven’t. Don’t inquire as if to assume they should obviously not only have left a note but also a helpful syringe lying in their bedside drawer. I’d be afraid to even take a nap next to Betty. What if she started to worry that my snoring was simply too horrible a condition for me to endure and started rummaging around for a note and either some pills or a hammer?
good common sense article. i had a friend who went through this and it caused extremely hard feelings in the family because the person in question never made plans. sometimes it is up to you to be the practical one and prepare for the end when the rest of your family cannot do it.