Who can I share end of life decisions with, when close family members do not want to discuss that with me?

Write your wishes down and have the form notarized with witnesses. Obviously, this is a sensitive thing for your family and your estranged husband most likely feels very uncomfortable and maybe even a tad guilty due to circumstances. So just decide what you want, write it down on a legal pad, make copies for all of family members, and do the living will. Give a copy to a close trusted friend too. I wish you well and hope your surgery was a success and that you will find that you are a cancer survivor. I hope that you have close friends outside of the family for moral support.

First of all have you put your wishes in the form of an advanced directive, or aPOLST? Physicians orders regarding life sustaining treatment. In either of these documents, you can name a surrogate who can speak for you when you are no longer able or name no one at which point it is your written decision alone for the basis of treatment. I would suggest that a copy of this document be given to your physician, your hospital where you receive treatment, and the l8cal ambulance company. You could also go online and request a vial of life. This comes with a sticker to place on your door or front window alerting emergency personnel that you have wishes in place. The vial itself is accompanied by paperwork that you complete, place in the vial, and store in the refrigerator. If your family will not discuss these issues with you, how about a close and trusted friend? If they are willing, they could also be your surrogate. Please keep in mind that advanced directives or a POLST can be modified at any time if eventually your family becomes more open to a discussion. However, please remember to discuss it with your physician and provide everyone with updated documents.

Close friend, lawyer, banker, Financial person. You should have a person you name as Power of Attorney for yourself and Healthcare Power of Attorney, which you can do online. You can write a signed, dated, sealed “In the Event of my Death” that states your wishes, leave it with close friends with contact info of your family.
Dr. Gross

Best get it in writing and legally-- it matters to you if you have a funeral or a memorial service and if you end up in nursing home where the nursing home makes lots of $ from Medicare and that neither will be accountable to anyone in the family as long as the nursing home/assisted living facility is milking the government for all it is worth while you are now a 1/4 of the person you were when you and yours entered into a "deal" with those devils. Put it in writing and get witnesses including your family doctor to agree to make sure you are not just a pawn in a unholy joke at the end of your life but that you have 100% of say in how well you live to the end of your life and also how you wish to be remembered-- with a church funeral service or just a family gathering. Even if you do not wish your less than faithful husband to attend which ever rememberance. Be true to yourself. Good luck.

Please write your wishes down and have your document notarized. A copy should be filed with your physician.

Hello, R2H : ) Thanks for bringing this up!!! And thank you SO much for posting as a caretaker who's also in the position of taking care of ourselves. Thanks and gratitude in advance for all other input!

This is a common issues - no one wants to talk about such matters and people generally don't know how to start a discussion or what to say. I worked in hospice and after retiring wrote about this with suggestions how to go about it and some suggested language. All things that have been tested and used over the years. Have a look at the book overview on Amazon. It will give you the answers you look for plus more information on other things you need to do and how to do them. Its only $3 for the Kindle version which is great value for this information.

I'm sorry you've gone through cancer and its treatments, but I'm relieved for you that you are coming out the other side!

You gotten a lot of great advice here so I won't repeat it. It sounds like the main issue is you can't get your family members to listen to you and interact with you on this topic. No matter the stage of life getting your end-of-life items together is always a rational thing to do.

I recommend bringing up this topic every few weeks to desensitize them to this topic. Plus, you can also recommend that they should work on their own end-of-life papers. This will help them to separate your working on these documents from being about your cancer. We never know when our time is up.

*hug*

Respect, thank you so very much for bringing this up. MANY of us are in your position! Of 3 sisters, I'm single and don't have the financial security or children that my other 2 do. So, I'm saving up from my quite frugal budget to pay for professional services to help me in my situation. I'm looking forward to other forum members' input on this. Namaste.

Write/type out your wishes etc. and attach any documents, wills etc and send to your family member by e-mail. I sent copies of my will to my siblings just in case something happened etc., even though all left up to spouse and son. This way they have your wishes to read instead of speak of in person which may be hard for them.

People don't usually want to talk about death, funeral arrangements, POA and other things. Medicaid wants to you pay for funeral ahead of time to spend down your money....other wise the nursing home will get it all. Look into putting everyone on bank accounts, check books, property, etc. You'll probably going to have to do it yourself. Get copies of everything and log it in a book. I bought a book called Peace of Mind Planner.... there's another called, I'm Dead... Now What! it's Peter Pauper Press... lots of bookstores and mail order have them.
Lots of information goes in this book for loved ones when we're gone.
We can't escape death, so why not be ready.
Glad you are feeling better after cancer.... Stay strong.

Talk to your son. He may keep his own counsel he may also have bit more compassion than the others.

I wish I sat down with my dad when he asked me years ago. I said to my dad I did not want to discuss it and he will be fine. Fortunately my father had a book with all his financial planning, navy information, insurance policies, deeds, money, bank statements and so on. He told me about the book before he died. I wished I went over things years ago, and that I do regret. I would ask family one more time, and if they still do not want to discuss it, I would start planning and writing important things in a book. It helped me so much. I think it is great you are planning ahead. The best to you.