My personal advance directive

So in the cool of the evening with no life threatening events immediately ahead of us, Carolyn and I complete an Advance Directive.  We are both in our late 90's.  Being the new generation we want to make sure we don't try to save each other beyond a reasonable number of times.  As the doctor bends closer to Carolyn's face so that he doesn't misunderstand her wish, Carolyn loudly answers, "Let the old Fart go.  Haven't you heard what he's been asking for the past 5 years?"

You see we picture the "Advance" part of the directive as the more important part and we place it far in the future.  When I was recently admitted to the Emergency Room, the people vying for my signature on the financial forms had their hands full getting past the ER clerks whose main interest was the Advance Directive. It was a slow afternoon and my trauma (not being able to breathe) was the best game in town.  So the whole ER staff minus those assigned to guard the doors or serve as ushers hovered around my bed while important, life altering decisions were made.  And there might have been some tense moments when a decision had to be made about whether my body was even worth keeping alive at all, not just for the 20th or 40th time.

Please don't get the idea that I want to second guess the decisions made by Carolyn and the hospital medical staff.  I probably owe my life to their making these decisions.  It's just that I'd been thinking of advance directives as pulling the plug time when it actually was used in a "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" fashion.  Once it was decided that Carolyn had permission and control over life and death decisions as to my mind and body, and it was explained to her that they could only work with clear cut directives (no maybe's or congressional joint resolutions) then things really went quickly.  They determined that I needed to breathe and that the best way to assure that outcome was to cut a 1/2 inch diameter hole in my neck and insert a tube that keeps the hole open.  Throughout the following days, decisions about my sleeping cycle, need for physical and chemical restraint, in general my whole life were decided.

In other words, my advance directive had been used and the direction was sure. The decisions did not come back to the table.  Of course the fact that I was no longer in a state of being able to make those decisions may have had something to do with that.

Let me be clear:

 THANK YOU, Carolyn, for making the brave decisions and commitments that allowed me to be here today.