POP discusses Five Wishes

By Christina Clift
On Friday, October 6, 2017 members of MCIL’s Peer Outreach Program (POP) met for our monthly training.  This month’s topic was not cheerful or one that is often easy to have with friends and family, but one that everyone should have before it’s too late.  The topic discussed was what would be your “Five Wishes” in case you are no longer in a position to make them for yourself.  The Five Wishes document was created by Aging With Dignity and can be purchased or downloaded by visiting http://www.agingwithdignity.org. 

It provides you a step by step outline on expressing your wishes.  If you haven’t had a talk about your final wishes, this can provide you with a tool to help the discussion along.  It is available in a variety of formats including print, large print, braille, and a downloadable file, as well as in several languages.

Here are some of the things you ought to consider when planning for the time when you aren’t able to speak for yourself. 

1.   Who do I want making healthcare or financial decisions for me? This can be a friend of family member and can be one or two people splitting the responsibility.  It should not be a home healthcare worker or provider agency. 

2.   What steps do I want my doctor or other medical professionals to take in order to keep me alive?  This simply means do you want to be given CPR if you stop breathing, how much medication do you wish to be given in order to relieve pain, do you want to be feed through a feeding tube, or do you want to be hooked up to oxygen.

3.   How comfortable do you want to be?  This means how much pain you want to have to endure and what steps do you want your doctor to take to alleviate it.

4.   How do you want to be treated with dignity?  Another way to think about this question is how you want to be taken care of by others.  Would you like to receive care at home, in a hospital, or a nursing facility?  Would you like to be bathed every day, massaged with warm oils every day, do you still want to wear make-up, what types of music would you like to listen to, and who you’d like to be able to see you. 

5.   What do you want done with your body once you die?  Do you want your body donated to science, do you wish to be buried, or do you wish to be cremated?  You can also plan out your funeral or memorial ceremony by picking out the songs sang, what types of flowers, what religious scripture you’d like read, and who you’d like to speak.

The motto of many disability rights organizations including MCIL is “nothing about us, without us.”  Five Wishes offers you that opportunity to speak up when you no longer can.  It provides you a legal document to put those wishes in that your doctor and family must respect.  You should provide the person making decisions for you a copy of your Five Wishes document, as well as to your lawyer. 

Finally, put it in a place where you or your friends can easily find it when it comes time for them to use it.