Paperwork In Order?

[ArcticDiver]

I'm now two weeks post-op from a nine hour spine surgery. The surgeon convinced me to try the little surgery last July in hopes of avoiding the big surgery. By March it was clear the attempt was a no go. So, now I have half the titanium in the US in my lower back. At least the surgery was done endoscopically so there are relatively small external wounds and internal healing should be faster since there are smaller and fewer wounds there also.

Over the past nearly a year I've met a lot of people who have had much more difficult lives than me. And, amazingly, quite a few who did not decide to pay the price of a different life and are somehow angry at me about it. Even more common are the people who don't have their paperwork in order.

By that I not only mean having a Will and associated death documents but all the other mundane until you need them things. Some examples:
-Someone to receive and care for your mail.
-Authorizations for access to bank accounts and other financial sources. If a credit card needs to be renewed and you were just hospitalized who makes sure that happens? Don't renew? In many folks' cases that means their routine, automatiic bills don't get paid and a cascade is started that seemingly has no end.
-Other routine business affairs. I was surprised to find that my cell company will only do business with someone who has been pre-authorized. While on a trip during this time there was an article in the local paper about a poor guy who was stranded because he didn't have picture ID. It seems he was witness to an accident. The cop took his driver license to fill out the forms and then went home, with the ID. Then the cop went on vacation. Meanwhile the guy had no way to prove identity at the TSA checkpoint so he was stuck until he could get ID sent from home. The combinations and permutations are almost endless.
-Notifications. One mother had a long period where whe didn't know where her adult son was because he became ill and was hospitalized while traveling. Notifications had not anticipated that and it took a long time for things to catch up. Fortunately, he didn't need anyone to make decisions for him. But.....

This list could go on and on. But, the essence is that over the past year I've met many people who, like me, had unexpected injury or trauma. Those who had planned ahead in detail seemed to fare better both medically and mentally than those who didn't.

Interestingly often the most inconvenient and difficult place to have something bad happen is not out in the boonies where one would think. It is in the midst of a city or highly populated suburb.

Paperwork in order?

[lavachickie]

Thank you thank you thank you for bringing this up.

A very timely post. It's something everyone should do -- and we recently discovered why. My mother-in-law died unexpectedly; she went in for a routine outpatient procedure, and to make a long story short, was taken off the ventilator four days later and passed.

I thank my parents for doing this: when they retired, they sat down and cataloged everything -- names, addresses, account numbers, etc. Living will. Regular will. They put copies of all important documents in with it, put it in a folder, bundled it up, handed it to me and said, "If anything should happen, just open this."

So please, everyone... gather those you love around and TALK about your philosophies about emergency end of life care. Heroic measures? If so which ones? What's your definition of quality of life? Not only the nuts and bolts but the overall philosophy as well. Do a formal living will/advanced directive. Put some thought into what you want done at that point of eventuality -- even if you are 25.

Because you never know. And the stress and strain on the loved ones that have to make and life with the most horrid of decisions will live on with them forever. The questions.

And always, ALWAYS... if you have to go in for any procedure, especially if that involves general anesthesia, have someone with you at all times who is intelligent, outspoken, and not afraid to ask questions, keep asking if the answers don't come, and who advocates for you in our health care system when you cannot. Because your life may depend upon it.

[ArcticDiver]

Oh yes, that is great service to one's family and friends. Unfortunately most people, in my estimation, do not take care enough to do it.

But, even at less dramatic levels taking care of the details can really pay off and keep minor things from becoming major. Phone numbers, passwords, key locations, all become valuable.

[oldsalt]

Not only are you taking the hard road in your treatment, you are trying to help other people with your experiences. After experiencing our parents' deaths, my wife and I have tried to make as many preparations as we could, including getting rid of all the stuff we never use so the kids don't have to go through it. We have a rule, if we get something new, something else has to go out. As thorough as we thought we had been, you brought up things we hadn't thought of.

A hijack of sorts. During the Vietnam War I spent most of four years over seas. I came back once during that time for school when I changed units. During SERE training (survival, evasion, resistance, and escape) my military ID card had been confiscated while in the "prison camp" and they failed to return it at the end of training. The Navy gave us a letter describing the situation to get us through the gate at the base until out ID cards were returned to us. While this was ok with the military, we were stopped by the city police who arrested us and threw us in jail for failure to provide proper identification. I didn't own a car and my current driver's license had expired while I was deployed. The base JAG came and bailed us all out.

I now keep photcopies of ID, drivers license, passport, Coast Guard licenses... the works.

Thanks for the posting.

[60south]

This is a good topic. As I was reading your comments I was thinking, What would happen with me? My family?

On the positive side, these days it's easy to set up most finances to keep running on auto-pilot. I'm already there because I leave home for months at a time.

But here's something I didn't learn until it was too late... When a family member comes out of the hospital, has the doctor or hospital arranged for follow-up care, or educated the family members on how to take care of the patient? You may suddenly find yourself changing dressings, cleaning up bodily fluids, giving meds, installing accessibility hardware, and making medical decisions without any help. The amount of post-op support we got was nada. And when you get home, broke and tired, suddenly you need to do it all at once... often alone.

NOW I would never allow a family member to be discharged from a hospital until I was satisfied with the training, support and supplies we'd get for home care.

[ArcticDiver]

An exercise I have found useful is to imagine myself in a strange city with only what was in my pockets and needing help. Memorizing a few phone numbers and keeping stuff in my wallet used to satisfy that test. Now that TSA often does everything but strip search I can get separated from my wallet and have only my arthritic memory.

Add to that the crowd at a busy airport like Seattle or Miami with people crowding and jumping the line and it is all too easy to find yourself missing some things.

Law Enforcement, Emergency Rooms/Admissions and other like places sometimes want the darndest things and if not produced quickly fall back to the bureaucratic and refuse to do much of anything until the proper paperwork is produced.

Something that has happened to me once and I've seen happen to others many times: Prove to a stranger that you are who you say you are so they are certain they are treating you properly, and most importantly to them, processing the proper paperwork. Attitudes of both parties plays a huge role. But.....

Even so the point of this thread is not just for the most dreadful, but for the work a day problem that can easily turn into an emergency. Like a friend of mine who was in downtown Seattle on a weekend night and needed cash. The ATM went into deadbeat mode and ate his only credit card. There he was with no cash, no credit card and away from home on a weekend night and needing to travel early the next week.