Barbara J. Hamby

Talk to Your Doctor

Having just watched the 60 Minutes story about the high cost of dying, I’ll be interested to see if it raises a lot of comment. There is already a good deal of controversy out there over health care reform and a lot of misinformation being bandied about. “They’re going to pull the plug on Grandma,” for example. Well, I’m not a grandma, but I’m older than some, and if I’m in pain and have no hope of recovery, I hope someone pulls the plug.
I’ve done the paperwork that purports to make that possible. I’m aware it doesn’t always work, but that’s the best one can do.

We constantly hear on television, “Talk to your doctor to see if ____________is right for you.” Usually the reference is to some sort of pharmaceutical, mostly unfamiliar ones, except for the E.D. drugs. We never hear anything about talking to your doctor about what sort of end-of-life care is right for us. We should. It seems that the American way is to pretend that death does not exist, or at least it will never happen to us. Young people, especially, seem to be convinced of their own personal invincibility.

We all need to do a lot more thinking and talking about our options, not only for the ends of our lives, but for the health care we need for all of our lives.

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