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@edsutton: As an End-of-Life doula, and as a person who has been diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic melanoma, you ask some very important questions. These are topics that many people tend to avoid yet are vital to consider when faced with terminal illness, to help ease the transition not only for the individual involved but for their loved ones. It's important to makepersonal wishes known and respected, while being as prepared as possible for understanding the dying process. To that end, I highly recommend the book Nothing to Fear: Demystifying Death to Live More Fully by Julie McFadden, RN ("Hospice Nurse Julie").
I'm open and interested in hearing more about the personal things you've mentioned in your post and hope the responses here remain respectful. One thing that I feel needs to be underscored in terms of religious or spiritual beliefs, is that it is essential to honor the spiritual practices of the individual(s) involved when it comes to end of life decisions and to refrain from offering ones own beliefs upon others.
Are you ready to share or would you like more time?
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@grammato3
Susan-
Thank you for your response.
I intentionally am not mentioning my own questions right away because I hope this will be a rather broad discussion, and I want to hear a range of concerns, not just mine.
In general, I believe if we die unexpectedly in our sleep, or of a fatal accident, the problems of dying are fairly simple.
If we die of an illness that kills us in a few weeks or months, it's still fairly manageable at home or in a nursing facility.
If, however, we go through a long period of disability, sudden or gradual, management and cost can be very difficult both for the person dying and their companions.
So, given these three possibilities, I'd like to hear about how folks have planned for them and what workable solutions can be shared. A few folks have unlimited resources, so they may not fully understand the questions, but for most of us finances play an important role, requiring creative responses to limited situations. I'd like to hear about them.
I don't wish to deny people their beliefs, but my concern here is more about the technical, physical, managerial, biological, financial and real estate questions, which presumably must be attended to to allow space for the spiritual practices of choice.