One of the reasons I’ve created this end of life planning class is to prevent other families the stress of going through what my family did when my husband Allan had a major stroke.

Although my husband Allan and I had discussed many times about his wishes regarding his health care we never took the time to write it down.  After he suffered a major stroke we were asked to fill out a health care directive.  We were fortunate because Allan could still talk and express his wishes. Another mistake we made was Allan had never talked to his adult children about his healthcare wishes.

There we were in the ICU forced to deal with making choices about Allan’s healthcare.  While Allan had been clear with me and I was in full agreement with his wishes his adult children were not in full agreement. 

Allan wanted no extremes measures taken to save his life and no heroics. His adult children were not in agreement. They wanted everything medically done for their father.  This became apparent when the doctors needed to discuss intubating Allan because he had developed pneumonia. (Intubate: To put a tube in, commonly used to refer to the insertion of a breathing tube into the trachea for mechanical ventilation.) Allan didn’t even want penicillin but agreed to it for his children. Allan was 100% against it but reluctantly agreed to it should the need arise.  He made me promise in front of his children that I would not allow them to intubate him for ten days.

As Allan’s wife and advocate, I made sure his wishes were followed.  He birthed into spirit 3 days after having a stroke. Allan had a heart attack and because he had a do-not-resuscitate order the doctors did not do CPR or put him in life support. 

I know reading about all of this can be overwhelming for many people.  The reason I’ve shared all of this with you is to help you understand that when families talk about death and dying before an emergency it takes some of the pressure off of everyone when they are faced with a crisis situation.