Question: If someone other than the living spouse is designated as healthcare surrogate, does the living spouse have to sign over the right to be healthcare surrogate? Does the spouse take precidence over the named healthcare surrogate? Does it vary by State?

Terri Shivo...so sad...

I don't know that answer and I would guess that it does vary by state.

Every night before sleep I think of three things in the day that happened, that I am grateful for. This focuses my mind on the fact that 3 good things will come tomorrow and life is worth living.

Also, I tell myself the Truth...that I am not this painful body or this anxious mind...I am Peace, Infinite Peace free of all pain. The Real You is free and pain free. The Real You is Bliss. I remind myself of this every night and it slowly seeps into the subconscious so that when pain/anxiety arises during the day, I'm not as impressed by it as the the day before.

Faith: I also tell myself that "Everything is happening exactly as it should". These are the words of a great Guru, Baba Muktananda. I believe that God is in TOTAL control of everything and thus acceptance (or surrender) is the best medicine. Accepting hell takes a lot of courage...but once totally accepted...hell becomes bearable. I share my pain with God. This is His problem too.

With love,
Ian

Alot of my bodies systems started to shut down after the cardiac arrest. I had kidney failure, respitory failure, and the liver failure. It was very painful recovering from it all, but my body did. I was in more pain in hospital than I am in now, I thought it was not going to get better, but it can. I had 3 blood transfusions as well.

Since dealing with my MS during my 25 year history I have had 3 or so episodes\exaserbations where I thought I was not going to survive. One episode in particular my doctors told me to get my house in order and be prepared for the end. But with my body rallied and I survived. Actually, it had alot to do with steroids and hospital stays. And a lot of hard work to follow. But

But I remember being so very ill, so very weak, I had already said all my good byes. Don' t get weirded out here I didn't go around telling people I was dieing. I just connected with all my friends and said the things I wanted to say. I made a will and had my end of life stuff together. It made me feel good about leaving. At the time I was leaving a young son so I made some preparations for him. But I was just to Arnwy and refused to go. :)

It is amazing for me to look back at that time. We had some pictures taken then and I look like I am at deaths door. It is difficult for me to even look at the pictures. I am not afraid of dying. I am more afraid of not living my life well. I've been given second chances and I feel very fortunate. I have CP but, I am still breathing.

Hugs, Cathy

This topic pisses me off. I dont feel that is belongs here. This board is about chronic pain. It is not about death. JC. I feel you need to think long and hard about what you post. I don't really care about how honest you are. I think you need to back of and realixe that some off us have had to make those GOD AWFUL DECISIONS. IN MY CASE ABOUT MY BELOVED DAD, JUST 2 YEARS AGO EXACLY.I feel as if I have to revisit all my hard thoght decision. This is a board about PAIN. If I thought it was about death and the hard decisions I was forced to make. I would have joined a diffrent board. I don't mean to harsh but I will mostly have nightmares for weeks.


Tamale

I protect my body by putting as little meds in it now as possible. I know that I will need them for the rest of my life and they are damaging to my body. Yes my body suffers for this but it would suffer more in the long run if I took more now. They wouldn't be as effective later on and I would need mega doses then.
Its also the lack of exercise that is hard on us. I'm confined to my bed the majority of the time.

I also had a living will made as an option before one of my surgeries in the hospital I was in. I made copies of it and every hospital that I have been to for testing I have given them a copy of it. So no long term life support measures for me. My dr and family members also have a copy of this. When I go for more testing or stays at these hospitals I request to see this copy and update the date on it and sign it again.

Some of these hospitals are catholic and they will honor it as it is a legal contract. The hospital that offered this to me in the first place is St. Mary's Good Samaritan Hosp. I'm sorry what happened to your grandfather Tigg.

This thread was started at a very bad time for me. I wasn't going to read any of it, but with so many replies added, I decided to investigate.

When I read the response from Tamale, it was actually a relief to know I'm not the only one who found this upsetting.

I have a story to tell which will explain further why this topic has me so upset, but it deserves it's own thread...I will not 'feed' this one again.

No one needs to have 5-6 threads going on page one...every damned day. I'm sure I'll be reprimanded for saying this, but here's my honesty for the day.

Yes I dont think we were thinking about talking about this I never had to make a decision like this so it is not personal to me but for people who had to I can totally see how upsetting it could be. Some things can bring up memory's and we should be more sensitive to those people

Sorry Tamale and Cherry

I don't think any topic should be off-limits. tamale and cherry I'm sorry you found this upsetting, but I know others find different topics upsetting as well for their own reasons.

Just wanted to clarify about the hospitals accepting the orders. My MIL had a lawyer prepare the DNR and living will so it was done properly. My SIL was her health care proxy and brought the paperwork to the nurses in the hospital. However my MIL stopped breathing well when we were not there. They called my SIL and she told them do nothing I'm on my way, but they intubated her anyway and sent her to ICU. For two weeks she was on a respirator and miserable. She was in and out of consiousness. They tried removing the respirator but she could not breath on her own. Finally after two weeks the doctors explained to the whole family that there was no hope of improvement. She had other conditions that were attacking her body and had been in the hospital for 5 months. So we all agreed to remove the respirator and my SIL signed the papers. But the hospital said no they would not honor it. Instead they had a committee rule and they decided that my MIL had to be asked if she wanted it refused. They would only accept the word of the patient and not the health care proxy.

We found out later that the hospital had become part of a chain that was run by the catholic diocease. There was no indication of this and when we gave them the paperwork no one told us that it was not accepted. So I'm just saying that everyone should check into their local hospitals now. Don't assume....

I do think this is an appropriate topic here, but it seems to me that some people have misread the authors intent... or perhaps I have it wrong? I don't think the "hard decisions" that Jancam spoke of were about making end of life choices for family/loved ones... but rather was referring to the difficult decisions we may be faced with as cp patients, deciding how much pain we can tolerate/survive verses the health impacts/side effects of medications.

There is certainly evidence to suggest that pain in itself can limit our lifespan, due to the tremendous stress that severe unrelenting pain puts on our bodies. I will post the link here to Dr Forrest Tennants publication "The Intractable Pain Patients Handbook For Survival".
http://pain-topics.org/pdf/IntractablePainSurvival.pdf

He is a very well renowned expert on pain and he outlines some of the reasons why he believes intractable pain to be life-threatening in this book. I recommend everyone with severe pain reads it... you may not agree with his beliefs or approach to treatment for chronic pain but he is certainly very knowledgable, so it is worth reading and considering what he has to say.

Please DNR this thread...........jc

I honestly don't care that someone had to "make this decisions" yesterday or 2 YEARS ago.

I found this topic usefull so I guess I should be lumped in with tamake and cherry's tude's and told to shut up about it.

Personally, I think you are in denial about your own feelings with regard to this topic and want to hurt the OP instead of face your own feelings.

You both need to read the stages of grief again!!!
If this post brought up things for you, then you still have processing to do about your own grief.
Lashing out at another is the anger stage. I'd say you are both stuck there until you deal with that anger.

Perhaps going to the grief support group would help you work thru these feeling better.

I for one worry about it all the time.
I worry like everyone else that the drugs are killing me.
But I have no actual life without them. So yes, this is a topic for chronic pain.

I have been as close to death as a human can come without actually dying. No "making the choice for someone else" BUT actually nearest death MYSELF. I am glad that jan brought up this topic because when I talk aobut how it feels to be that close to crossing over, people tend to ignore.

GTK I don't understand what choices we have in dealing with pain. You either take the meds or treatments to relieve pain or you don't. I assumed her thought was along the lines of do we want to prolong life when in untreatable pain. Some conditions will evolve to the point that artificial life support is necessary. And we should make decisions on this before those decisions are made for us.

I certainly hope that no one is talking about ending their life as an option for treating pain. To me that is not treating that is surrendering. And while I do believe in some rare cases there can be a choice I think it would only be appropriate after all medical options are explored and under the strict care of a doctor. Kevorkian had some very valid arguments for his beliefs and some states now agree.

Dr Forrest Tennants also points out that useing narcotics under a doctors care is very safe. NSAID's and pain do more damage than narcotics.

It is a difficult topic that we all worry about.

What happens at the end of life to a person who has used these meds appropriately all their life. DO they die in horrible pain because medicine does not give out more?

It is a worry. Talking about it is not dwelling on it. Just makes it safer to live each day.