Now I can be (fairly) sure . . .
4 years ago
. . . that my loved ones know what I want, and that I won’t die after being hooked up to a machine for weeks or months.
You need a trusted loved one, too, to carry out your wishes. Even though the hospital has your living will on file, they will not necessarily act on it unless your loved ones step forward. During my mother’s last days, the hospital was going to insert a feeding tube . . .I had to talk to the doc and make it very clear that if she was not going to recover, I wanted the hospital to honor her living will and not prolong the process. Hard enough to have a parent die without going through that, too.
