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Episode 014 Wellness Series: Health Care Power of Attorney (HCPOA)
Podcast Episode 14 - Health Care Power of Attorney (HCPOA)

Episode 014 Wellness Series: Health Care Power of Attorney (HCPOA)

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In this podcast episode, we conclude the two-part episode to Financial Wellness with Health Care Power of Attorney (HCPOA).  

Links to articles referenced in the episode:

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TRANSCRIPT:

Hello! Welcome to the Sally in the Zen podcast.  I’m your host Sally. I’m a Zen Buddhist caregiver taking care of my elderly folks, and always in pursuit to find Zen moments in everyday living.  If you’re new to the podcast, welcome, glad to have you. If you’re not new and returning, welcome back!

Today’s episode is wrapping up our two-part series for this month on Financial Wellness.  In our last episode, we spoke about basic financial planning, specifically on estate planning.  We drilled down from there into Wills and Power of Attorneys.  

In today’s episode, it’s going to speak more directly into a different type of power of attorney called a Health Care Power-of-Attorney or Advance Directives.  Now before I begin, let me put a disclaimer out there that everything I say on this episode, on my podcast, unless otherwise stated, are my opinions, and my opinions alone.   I’m not paid or sponsored by anyone to say what I’m saying in today’s episode. Just so that we’re clear.  

In addition to my disclaimer, I want to add very clearly that today’s subject can be a controversial area. People have strong opinions about this but I want to reiterate that this is my personal opinion, and that this is in no way encouraging anyone to buy, or to sell, or to do anything that goes contrary to how you feel and what you believe.

Now in saying all of that, for our agenda, we’re going to be talking about Terri Schiavo, Brittany Maynard, Death with Dignity.org, and coming across Five Wishes as a result of all of those cases.  Now if you’re ready, then let’s get started.

Now all of the references and resources that I cite on today’s episode, I’ll, of course, link to the show notes for your reference.  But years ago and I can’t remember when, I came across the news of Terri Schiavo.

According to Wikipedia, Terri Schiavo was a right-to-die legal case in the United States from 1990 to 2005.  Now when you read further in Wikipedia, it says on February 25th, 1990 at age 26, Schiavo sustained a cardiac arrest at her house in St. Petersburg, Florida.  She was successfully resuscitated but had massive brain damage due to lack of oxygen to her brain and was left comatose. And then after two and a half months without an improvement, her diagnosis was changed to that of a persistent vegetative state.  

And then it wasn’t until 1998, Schiavo’s husband, Michael, petitioned the courts to remove her feeding tube.  He was opposed by his wife’s parents, and the Court determined that Schiavo would not have wished to continue life-prolonging measures, and then on April 24th, 2001, her feeding tube was removed for the first time, only to be reinserted several days later.  

Then on February 25th, 2005, another judge order the removal of her feeding tube but then more appeals came and more interventions came until ultimately the feeding tube was disconnected on March 18th 2005, and she finally passed away on March 31st 2005.  

For more information you can go ahead and click on the link that I’ve attached on the show knows about the case.   

Then the second right-to-die case that we heard on the news was Brittany Maynard.  She had a form of brain cancer that gave her a prognosis of six months to live. She moved from California to Oregon to take advantage of the Oregon’s Death with Dignity law, saying that she decided that death-with-dignity was the best option for her and her family.

At a high-level, Oregon’s Death with Dignity law allowed for assisted suicide, and on November 1st, 2014, at the age of 29, she passed on.  And because of Britney’s case, that’s how I learned about Death with Dignity.org. 

According to their website, the mission of the Death with Dignity National Center is to promote death-with-dignity laws based on their model legislation, the Oregon Death with Dignity Act bill to provide an option for dying individuals and to stimulate Nationwide improvements in the End of Life Care.  

Assisted dying statues in California, Colorado, DC, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont and Washington allow mentally competent terminally ill adult state residents to voluntarily request and receive a prescription medication so they can die in a peaceful, humane manner in a place and time of their own choosing.  

Death with Dignity is one of the many end-of-life care options available ,and this is straight from their website.

But Terri Schiavo was a case that made us think about what we would do, God forbid, if we were in Terri Schiavo position.  Being in vegetative state for 15 years.  

Now Zen Master and I are Buddhists, and we have very clear feelings about how we want our final moments to be, and it’s not as a vegetative state.  We personally believe that there’s nothing to be prolonged and we choose not to be in that kind of vegetative state, rather that we would opt out in that case.  Or more bluntly, more specifically, we would want someone to pull the plug for us. Hence we would do a Brittany Maynard ending, and that’s completely our decision to make.  

Now these two cases brought up a conversation in our particular household about end-of-life treatment, who’s doing what, how would you want your remains to be handle, that kind of thing.  And because my family is pretty progressive for being Chinese, and what I mean by that, is Chinese culture is, I think I said this earlier in one of the early podcasts, in the old days, insurance business was just not a good business to be in.  You wouldn’t make money because the Chinese population, especially in Dad’s generation, don’t speak about death, don’t speak about those kinds of bad or inauspicious news or talk, because that’s what essentially insurance is. It’s preparing you, actually prepping your family in the case that you were no longer there.  

And to talk about that is kind of taboo back then.  You don’t talk about death. That’s like putting a jinx on people.  That’s like putting a jinx on your household, and hell no to jinx, that kind of mentality.  

But now that we’ve progressed in time and with newer generations, insurance and that kind of talk has become less of a taboo to talk about.  But specifically in our household, we talked about it and not only that, we looked into POAs, healthcare POAs, and that’s when I came across Five Wishes.

Now according to their website, Five Wishes is an easy-to-use legal advance directive document written in everyday language.  It helps all adults, of those regardless of age or health, to consider and document how they want to be careful at the end of life.  It is America’s most popular Living Will with more than 35 million copies in circulation.

Now moving down to the second paragraph, Five Wishes is unique among all other living will and health agent forms because it speaks to all of a person’s needs: medical, personal,  emotional, and spiritual. Now Five Wishes documents are legally valid in all states. Some states require specific additional forms of mandatory notices, but if you live in one of those states, you can still use Five Wishes to help guide the conversation and put your wishes in writing and you can attach the additional attached required forms.

Now as I live in Pennsylvania, Five Wishes does meet the legal requirements for an Advance Directive in Pennsylvania.  Just like in most other states, you can use Five Wishes in Pennsylvania to express how you want to be treated if you were seriously ill and unable to speak for yourself using a document that is easy to understand.  

Once it’s signed and witnessed, your Five Wishes is a legal document, and that’s straight from the website, for the state of Pennsylvania.  

That was the reason why we used it in the first place because it was just easy to understand and to use, and it does cost something to get Five Wishes.  

Now I found that AARP actually offers free downloads of these forms by state and I’ll, of course, attach the link to AARP for you to refer to, if you choose, but I just clicked all the way through to Pennsylvania and I saw that was pretty easy and it’s actually free to go ahead and download these forms.  

And let me just say once more that this is not me encouraging anyone to download any forms, buy any forms.  It’s up to you. This is all about the more you know.

So this wraps up our episode for today.  The closing off on Financial Wellness for the month of February.  Now moving into the next two episodes are the last tenant for the Wellness Weries overall and it’s about spiritual wellness.  

Hope you like today’s episode.  If you did, and you have a comment or question, just drop by my blog SallyintheZen.com.  Hit the Contacts page and give me your comment, or an idea, if you have an idea for future episodes, feel free to share and let me know.  Maybe I’ll feature it in a future episode.  

Thank you so much for joining me in today’s episode and for joining me in my pursuit to find Zen moments in everyday living.  Talk to you next time.

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