attention during this final session and if you
have any questions at the end, well, the
three brothers would be happy to come up and
happy for you to come up to them after it's
over and spend time with them and they would be
happy to try their best to answer any questions
you may have in that way. Let me introduce the
speakers in the order that they will make
their presentations this afternoon. First of
all is Jack Doody and Jack will be discussing
alternatives to suicide and some other general
discussion and Jack has been a minister for
thirty-six years at the Church of our Lord and
he has a lot of experience. He lives in
Colson, Michigan which is very near to where Dr.
Jack Kevorkian is practicing and has had
some personal contact with Dr. Kevorkian and
has been very interested in this particular
topic and has been motivated because of all the
questions and his needs to respond to
his people in his church and the community. So
Jack will be our first presenter. And then
Dr. Owen Clopton who is a medical physician of
internal medicine. He's been practicing
since 1958. He is an elder of the Southwest
Church of Christ in Jonesboro, Arkansas and
he is chairman of the ethics committee of the
St. Bernard Hospital in Jonesboro, Arkansas.
And then our last presenter is Dr. Bruce Davis.
He is the director of the Center for the Study
of Aging here at ACU. He is an elder at the
Highland Church of Christ. He has his Ph.D..
from the University of Nebraska and with a
specialty in gerontology. He's a professor
here at ACU, teaches a course in death and
dying and the issues that are related to end
of life decision. So before we begin our final
session I would invite you to pray with me.
Father may you be glorified in every word that
is thought and spoken during this final
hour. Father we pray your blessings upon us,
the audience, and your blessings upon the
speakers. Father we pray that you'll open our
hearts and our minds to understand what
your will is so that above all we can minister
to people that are hurting and suffering around
us. Father we pray that we can be like Jesus
and touch other people the way that Jesus
wants them to be touched. So we yield ourselves
to you. We pray that you should mold our minds.
Father we pray as these lovely folks will be
leaving this session and driving back to
their homes. We pray that you'll protect them.
We pray your protection upon all those
travelers that are on the road now. Give them a
safe trip Lord. We thank you for blessing
us during this lectureship. Be with us for this
last hour of this class. We pray in Jesus.
Thank you CD. As I mentioned in the first
session, we're all being affected in one
way or another by the issue of suicide,
assisted suicide, doctor assisted suicide, or whatever
you wish to call it. Some are very directly
affected by this issue of suicide. Some of
this room have been very directly impacted by
suicide within family. And I suspect that
any one of us could conceivably, before we
finish our lives here, be faced with this
very sensitive and emotionally impacted issue.
It's my prayer and I hope you understand
that this is as deeply sincere as I can be.
That the time that you have spent here in
listening to our discussions, if you are ever
confronted with this issue personally or you
know of someone that you might be just a little
better equipped to deal with. I mentioned
in the second session that I had last year done
some study on the question of euthanasia
and I wrote a little booklet and I'm sorry I
don't have these that would be available
to you as the summary of my research. But
euthanasia, who decides is the title I chose
to give to this. And basically what I did in
that book was to look at three communities.
I looked at the legal community, I looked at
the medical community, and I looked at
the religious community. And once you begin to
examine those three communities, which
in some way become involved when the
discussions of suicide or the issues of suicide
or assisted
suicide are raised, you begin to wonder where
do I turn? Which one of these communities
do I go to to get some help? And if you choose
one of those communities to turn to, be it
the medical, legal, or religious communities,
where within that community do you go to get
help? The three communities are not in
agreement on the issue. You don't find the
legal community,
the medical community, and the religious
community in total agreement on the issues of suicide
or assisted suicide. And if you were to step
inside the legal community, all you'd have
to do would be to cross county line or city
lines or state lines and here again you meet
with disagreement. So where do you turn? In my
own state of Michigan. The legislature
that has just recently passed a law that will
ban doctor assisted suicide, the law will
go into effect March the 30th of this year. It
will carry with it $2,000 fine and up to
four years in prison for any physician found to
assist in a suicide. The same legislature
that passed that law also passed law that would
give an 11-year-old girl the opportunity
to receive counsel to have an abortion. So
where do you go? Which community do you turn
to to get your help? When there's inconsistency
and there's disagreement within each of those
communities, would you turn to the religious
community? All you've got to do is walk across
the street from one church to the next, maybe
from one pew to the next within a given church
or from one minister to the next. And you're
going to begin to get some different ideas
about the issue. We hope we provided
information today that will help, that I'll
almost guarantee
you if you're ever faced with it, it will
become a personal decision. It will not be
decided by the communities, may be influenced
by, but it will not be decided by the communities
that we have alluded to here. See in the
medical community as an example, you have on
the one
hand a Dr. Jack Kaborkin who has been labeled
Dr. Death, very outspoken, very brash, unafraid.
He's told me on the phone that the law will not
keep him from doing what he is doing.
Our state knows that. He's going to test it.
People, many people do not like him. Some
think he's a hero. Then you have a Dr. C.
Everett Koop who used to be our Surgeon General,
U.S. Surgeon General, who would say in a little
book called Right to Live and Right to Die
that I have made decisions at times to not
prolong the lives of people based upon three
self-imposed rules to know a lot about the
patient, to know a lot about the disease,
and to know a lot about the patient's reaction
to the treatment that I give. But the key
words here in reference to Dr. Koop's approach,
these are self-imposed rules. Or you have
on the other hand a Dr. Timothy Quill who burst
on the scene back just a couple of three
years ago out of Rochester, New York who
assisted a young lady who had cancer in her death.
How did he do it? She had begged of him that he
would provide her with a prescription of
medication that would help her to end her life.
He tried to dissuade her from that.
Over and over again she would ask. He would try
to say, let's keep living until ultimately
she persisted and he gave in, wrote the
prescription, told her how much it would take
to relieve
pain, how much it would take to end her life.
She ended her life with that prescription.
He was not prosecuted. And there are those who
would say that he's more respectful, to
be respected than a Dr. Kaborkian. But you have
three physicians. You have this man with
love in his heart for life and for people that
he treats, Dr. Klopton who has spoken
to us today. His approach is not like Quill's.
His approach is not like Kaborkian's. May
not be, I'm not sure, like Dr. Koop. I'm not
sure. But where do you turn? When you walk
from here today you're going to still wrestle
with a personal decision. But what we're trying
to do is to bring into public discussion an
issue that we have too long kept closed. And
especially I think in the church we've kept
closed. A few years ago a study was done by
a couple of individuals called Glasser and
Strauss. And they discussed how in the medical
community, in the hospital, personnel there
including physicians, nurses and other individuals
that will care for patients, deal with
communicating with patients that are terminal.
And I find
in my experience as a minister the same
awareness context that these individuals came
up with
are the context that we also function by as
individuals. One is the closed awareness context.
That's a closed awareness context. Here's a
patient who is dying. It's known the patient
is dying. The doctor knows the patient is dying.
The family knows the patient is dying.
The patient does not know he or she is dying.
And nobody tells them. Now some of you may
have gone through that. You may have chosen not
to tell a loved one he or she was dying.
That's all right. That was your choice. But
that's an approach that we take. We keep death
closed to discussion. We don't bring it into
the open. There's another awareness context
which is called suspicion awareness where the
patient is dying but has not been told
he or she is dying but sees the doctor and
family huddled in the corner whispering at
all the tests that are being run and they begin
to suspect something serious is wrong
here but they're not told. Then there is what
is called the ritual drama of mutual pretense.
The patient knows she is dying or he is dying.
The doctor knows it. The nurses know it. The
staff people know it. The family know it. But
everybody pretends that it's not true.
And so you come in today and you know that
tomorrow possibly the person is going to die
and you say, oh, you're looking so much better
today. Maybe tomorrow when you get home or
next week when you get home we can plant some
flowers. And you just simply pretend that
death is not going to occur when you know it's
going to occur. Then there is open awareness
where families are comfortable enough with
their faith and their relationship with each
other to lovingly embrace each other in love
and discussion of very significant things
that may never be approached once that body is
put in the casket and the casket is put
in the frown. I just recently walked through
death with a young lady who was 40 years of
age. She had been fighting cancer since 1986.
It started with a lump. Then it started with
another removal. It started with a removal of
the breast. It then went to brain tumors.
Then it went to spreading throughout other
organs in her body. That lady approached death
with thumbs up. She approached death by talking
about life and her family. I remember one
day going to the high school just recently to
pick up her 16-year-old son and take him
to the hospital because we were all told,
including her, that that day probably she
would die. And we could embrace and we could
talk. She didn't die that day. The next day
I went in she was thumbs up. She was feeling
great. But on her close to her 40 well actually
on her 41st birthday I conducted her funeral. I
went into her home the evening that I was
called that only hours remained in her life.
And I cradled her head in my hands. Her husband
caressed her and reassured her how special and
important she was. Her son could kiss
her. Her family was gathered around. Her
friends were there. Even Frosty the dog could come
up and lick her on the hands and express his
love. That's open awareness. Now I know I've
got to hurry but I felt I needed to say that.
We've got to talk about this very important
issue. We've talked about the issue of suicide.
We've talked about the issue of assisted suicide.
Let me send you home with this. Choose life.
Let me give you some biblical
examples. The doctor referred to this one I
believe this morning. Maybe Bruce did. The
Philippian jailer in Acts 16. You recall how he
at the hour of midnight was
awakened ran in startled thinking that all the
prisoners had escaped from his prison
that had been broken open by earthquake. He was
responsible for all the individuals there
in his prison. He knew that probably his life
would be taken being the person responsible
for these prisoners if they did escape. He took
his sword and he was going to destroy
himself. Remember what he was told? Do thyself
no harm. Then what followed? For we are all
here. Sometimes I am afraid people in their
lives because they don't have the information
that they need. This man felt there was no way
out other than to destroy himself. When
there was one piece of information that would
turn his life around all he needed to know
was the prisoners are all here in that instance.
How many people have died needlessly if it
could have been another hour or another day
another month or another year. For some it
might not have made a difference. Try to get
all the information possible. Don't act hastily.
Choose life. What about Moses? Numbers 11. Here
is an individual who was burdened
and I would have been burdened too if I had to
listen to those Israelites the way he did.
They murmured and complained all the way
through the wanderings through the wilderness till
the time they got to the promised land and they
didn't really quit murmuring then. But
Moses says I can't take it anymore. So he
pleaded with God kill me this burden I can't
bear it. Moses was carrying the burden he felt
all alone on his shoulders. There was
an alternative plan. God says Moses choose 70
people to help you and relieve the burden.
See sometimes we're so self-sufficient and so
turned inwardly that we can't see outside
and see that there's a possibility for some
other way. Not connected directly but may
be connected. Remember Paul's statement to the
Corinthians that God will not put up on
us more than we can bear but with every
temptation will provide a way of escape. Is it
that we
don't always see the way of escape because we
don't look for it? Is that possible? Choose
life. Elijah contended with the God's bail on
Mount Carmel successfully. Now Jezebel's
gonna have his life and he begins to run
whimpering crying afraid ends up in a cave but
he says
I want to die. He was so afraid of what might
happen to him by some other means. But the
point here is there was an alternative way of
dealing with this. If he could have only
remembered how God was with him there on Mount
Carmel, think back. If you feel you're in
the valley just think back to when God was with
you when you knew you were on the mountain
and there was victory and also I'm all alone.
If he could have only known about those thousands
of people that had never bowed their knee to
bail that God had reserved just another
piece of information would have helped. And you
know what else Elijah was going to be
called upon to do? People are at the point of
ending their lives. Elijah was at the point
of ending his life and God said there's great
plans for you. You are still going to anoint
kings. Don't end a life that can be productive.
Job, the good Dr. Clopton said this morning
he said, I don't know why Job didn't end it.
You read chapter 3 and see all the whys that
Job asks. He says, why didn't I die a still,
why wasn't a stillbirth or why didn't they
take me out and bury me when I was born? But
Job you see did not read chapter 1 of Job
to see why all this was happening nor had he
yet been able to read chapter 42 to see
that God was going to bless him abundantly. He
was in his valley. Aren't you glad he didn't
commit suicide? He probably was too. Jonah,
Jonah preached success. People repented. Jonah
was sad because these people somehow repented
and God blessed them. Jonah says, oh I just
want to die. Sometimes in choosing life it just
simply takes a change of heart. It takes
a repentance within the beings and individuals.
Jonah could have been a different person if
he had chosen to do right and obey God rather
than to be whimpering about his own concerns.
Paul, I don't have really much time to talk
about this but I'll close with this in my
last 30 seconds. Philippians 1:21, for me to
live as Christ and to die as
gain, if it is to be life in the flesh that
means fruitful labor for me, yet which I shall
choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between
the two. My desire is to depart and be with
Christ. For that is far better. But to remain
in the flesh is more necessary on your account.
I'm not suggesting to you today that Paul was
contemplating committing suicide. He said
here are two alternatives. One is to depart and
be with Christ. The other is to remain
with you. I do not know which I choose. Now we
ultimately know that he chose to stay.
But was he just simply saying I am so tired and
so weary that maybe I just kind of lay
back and will myself to die. But Paul
remembered his God and he continued serving.
Well, if
you want to tell somebody what Jack Doody said
it's a seminar to you, that's it. Choose
life. Thank you. Some would say to be the last
speakers in the last hour of a three-day
seminar is a form of assisted suicide. But I'm
glad, I'm certainly glad everyone is here
this afternoon. Brother Davis didn't have high
expectations but I think he got full
this afternoon. We've talked about the right to
die, the right to live, to choose life,
to choose death and it makes advanced
directives even more important. How many people
in here
have a living will? About the usual number.
There is a federal law now called the Patient
Self-Determination Act. When you are admitted
to a hospital, the hospital is required to
provide you with one of these. She remembers
when I was born. So she's in her 80s. The
first time I ever saw her as a patient, she had
a heart attack and was in heart failure.
She pulled through this, had a bypass, did
fairly well and then started having some funny
looking blood counts and found to have acute
leukemia. It was about three months ago. She
was seen by the oncologist who told her the
treatment, treatment alternatives, the side
effects and he said I choose not to have
treatment and was doing fairly well and came in with
really a massive stroke about a week ago in the
hospital and is steadily deteriorating.
The last patient I saw Monday morning before I
left and was unable to talk after the stroke,
I visited with her and her husband and their, I
guess nieces and nephews. They had all agreed
that no, she did not want to be placed on a
ventilator. No, she did not want extraordinary
treatment and I feel that she died Monday but
she died a very dignified death the way
she wanted to die. I would like to make a pitch
here for two groups. One is hospice
which Brother Duty is a member of. Hospice is
home care, terminal care for the cancer
patient. The group of volunteers usually with a
RN or a hospital based supervisor that will
go into the home, go into the hospital, take
care of the patient, help with the family,
on call 24 hours daily to help the patient. It
is a valuable ministry. I have never seen
it wholly based in a church but I see no reason
for the Church of Christ not to have hospice
ministers made up of only Christians.
Tremendous ministry. The husband of the lady he talked
about was baptized a month or so after she died.
So it's very valuable. The hospital
ministry is also a valuable ministry. We did
not have one in Jonesboro until four or five
years ago. We have a 300 bed hospital with a
250 mile radius primarily rural people with
the exception of our town and at 48,000 it's
not metropolitan certainly. Our minister is
a retired individual who was actually a
salesman before he retired. He's had, I don't know
Winston you know how many responses he's had?
Over 200 in less than five years. He just
goes and it's not limited to the Church of
Christ. He's baptized people in the Hubbard
Tank in the hospital in physical therapy. This
tank that you can be lowered into and out of.
He has followed up and gone into their homes
later. He has been extremely effective. Part
of his effectiveness is a group of very
dedicated ladies who go and visit also. You can just
go to the nursing station and talk to the
nurses. Say is there anyone on this floor
who needs help? And it doesn't matter who they
are. There are people, people who go
to hospitals are not normally in their best
state of mind nor are they, they are hurting
and they're wanting. Some of them are just
lonely. Just need somebody to sit and read
a book to them. If you're 80 years old and the
TV is up on the wall and the controls
are down here, they won't reverse and you've
got to go forward with them. To have somebody
there to help you. First place you can't see it
because of your cataracts or your glasses
are still at home. And then to have someone
just read to you. Very valuable. Someone who
just cares. If it's a family from out of town,
is there anything we can do for you? Can I
run an errand for you? Can I sit with your
husband or your wife while you go eat? And
most hospitals are very appreciative of this.
Very supportive of it. So there are two ministries
which can be very effective, very caring, very
compassionate. I would like to end with
1 Corinthians 15 and 26, the last enemy to be
destroyed is death. But he certainly will.
John 14:1-4, which I will not read, but it
bears reading. This morning during
the second session, when it was over, the
thought struck me that the ability to discuss
openly any controversial subject and leave his
brothers is a unique event.
I want to say how much I appreciate my two
colleagues Jack Doody and Dr. Owen Clopton
for joining me in this forum. And I think I
have gained a great deal I know I have from
their wisdom and from their insight. And I hope
that you have been blessed by that time
from them. I also want to thank C.D. Pruitt for
his tenacity which he takes and the seriousness
with which he takes his job. And he gives us
those two minute warnings and the stop
and we all are very fearful of what might
happen if we didn't stop. But we appreciate
very much his work as well. I want to just
reemphasize some things that
have already been said and I want to point you
toward another resource or two and then
share with you a very personal example within
my own family of having to make some very
difficult decision. I don't share that with you
to prescribe anything or to be condemning
with any decision that anybody has ever made
for themselves or for one of their loved ones.
I simply share this example with you as where
we live today, the reality of where we live
today with regard to the medical attention,
with regard to what can be done and what maybe
should not be done with regard to medical care
at the end of life. You know it's very
difficult to determine today when is a person
dead. That's one of the burning issues of
the ethicist today. When do you judge a person
to be dead? Now we have a definition from
Black's law book and law dictionary of some
years ago it described death as the cessation
of life, the ceasing to exist, defined by
physicians as total stoppage of the circulation
of the blood and the cessation of the animal
and vital functions consequent thereupon such
as respiration, circulation. But folks that
definition doesn't work in today's modern
technological world. As Dr. Clopton has
described several times, you can keep a heart beating
and you can keep lungs breathing indefinitely.
Today's modern definition of death has to
do with brainwave activity and the cessation of
brainwave activity even down to the brain
stem. But I'm not sure that altogether even
that definition is adequate. For some of us
I believe it would come down at that moment in
our life to whether or not we consider
us to be having life. I think that's a very
difficult decision and I think it has been
emphasized over and over again that that has to
be a very personal decision between you
or your family member and your physician. At
what point in time do you want someone
to give up and to quit trying to keep those
lungs breathing and that heart beating? That's
a difficult decision in many, many cases. It is
particularly difficult in the Alzheimer's
family. Every Alzheimer's patient is going to
deteriorate to the point of death. It is
a progressive terminal disease. I've heard
writers indicate, well, it is not terminal
but I have never heard of an Alzheimer's case
being cured. It is a terminal disease. It
is progressive and at some point in time that
person will lose the innate ability to recognize
food that that's what they're supposed to eat.
If they are fed they're going to lose
the innate ability to chew and next will follow
even if that food is pureed and placed in
the mouth the innate ability to swallow. And
then at some point in time we must make a
decision in a case like that. Do we then
intervene in the deterioration of that mind and that
body and poke a feeding tube down that person's
throat and keep those lungs breathing and
keep that heart beating? I want to tell you
that from my experience and I'm not a medical
doctor but I've been around dying older people
a long time. I managed a retirement facility
and lived in that retirement facility for eight
of the 11 years that I managed it. Lived
with 200 senior grandparents if you will. My
children had all of these great grandparents
around. But it seems to me that when the body
begins to want to die part of the process
is it quits eating. It starts shutting down the
eating process. In my mind and sometimes
we do some very ungodly things and that is an
individual decision as to whether or not
we want those things done to you or you or on
behalf of someone else. But we intervene
in the dying process. I think it comes down to
one basic decision for me. Am I extending
the dying process or am I extending life?
That's a basic decision that I think many
times we have to make. Is what we are doing for
that person extending life or is it extending
the dying process? In my mother's situation my
mother had Parkinson's disease that we
knew of 18 years before she died. That's a
pretty long track for Parkinson's disease.
Eight of those years my father waited on her
hand and foot. She was on a walker. It was
very hard for her to get around to do anything
for herself in the way of preparing food.
And he took care of her. He was proud to be
able to take care of her. In fact he took
care of her up until two weeks before he died
with prostate cancer. And had Bruce Davis
come in a few weeks before that and said well
dad don't you think it's about time for me
to take over and take care of some of the
business and so forth. If I had come in two
months ahead of this he would have said go fly
a kite Bruce. I can still take care of
things. And I'm glad that he felt that way. Two
weeks to three weeks before he died mother
called and said you'd better come now. We had
been checking frequently and I was in
Nebraska. My brother was in the Philippines at
the time. And he's here today in fact.
And so she called and she said you'd better
come. It's time. We need your help. So we
came and sure enough we did. The medicines that
he was taking was keeping him asleep
most of the day because the cancer had gone to
the liver pretty well. It was not metabolizing
any medication. If he got pain medication it
was just staying with him. So we proceeded
to arrange for a nursing home room that both of
them could be in and proceeded to break
up the household as many of you have had to do
or may have to do. That point in time we
got all of that done. It took us a week or so
and we were ready to go back to Nebraska
where I had to go and make a living. My head
relative was there. But no longer no sooner
got home than we got a call before we had a
night's rest even that he had died. So we
went back for his funeral. Mother lived for 10
years Parkinson's disease in a nursing
home. The last several years with us right here
in Abilene in a nursing home. It generated
the point that she did not she had congestive
heart failure, congestive kidney failure.
Everything was ceasing to her. Her voice was
very, very weak. But to our amazement had
a fairly clear mind still at that point in time.
If you would get close you would make
the effort to understand what she was saying in
a whisper. Call me one evening and said
Dr. Davis this was a call from the emergency
room at Humana Hospital. Dr. Davis is your
mother an Alzheimer's patient? I said
absolutely not. I said if you will listen
carefully if
she's able to speak you will understand
everything she said. And the people in the emergency
room said well something very serious has
happened and so you need to come and let us
visit with you. And so I did. After a little
bit of research in the emergency room x-rays
and whatnot it was found that she had a blood
clot that had gone to the leg and part of
the blood clot had gone to the brain lodged in
the brain. They were able to open up her
leg to the point that she was able to receive
circulation but then part of that clot lodged
in the foot. And after a week in the hospital
and her not responding to any of this her
veins were collapsing. They weren't able to
find veins for intravenous feeding and medication.
The doctor who is a Christian here in Abilene,
a friend of mine, he and I got in a room that
was quiet away from my mother and he said Bruce
let me tell you where the situation
is right now. He says we're going to have to
take your mother's foot off if she's going
to live. I said no we're not going to do that.
Then he proceeded to say well the other thing
that we have to discuss is that we're going to
have to insert a type of catheter to be
able to feed her and to provide medication and
hydration through the veins in the heart.
Her veins have collapsed completely. I said
doctor I really don't want to do that. And
he says and I asked him I said here I am in a
very emotional situation with my own mother.
We have talked about these things. I said I'm
glad we've talked about these things.
I don't believe that she would want me to keep
her alive in a comatose state. That's
all I see right now is a comatose state. And he
said well he says I will honor your wishes
on both accounts. I have to tell you that's
exactly what I would do if your mother was
my mother. Now I know his mother and his mother
is a vital person. She's alive. She's well.
She's active and very astute woman. He said if
my mother is in the same condition as your
mother those are exactly the two decisions that
I would make. He says Bruce the only
other thing we can do is send your mother back
to the nursing home and send her with
enough pain medication that if she has any pain
at all we will take care of that. I said
let's do that. He sent her back to the nursing
home and as far as I know she never had to
take any of that pain medication and she died
exactly one week later in that nursing home.
I told the staff I said anything that she will
take by mouth try give her water give
her anything else that she will take. They knew
that the order was to not insert tubes
and not do those things. I believe that's
exactly what my mother wanted me to do for
her. I went to the hospital bed not knowing I
mean the nursing home bed not knowing she
had heard me but I took my song book and I sang
to her as long as I could that week every
chance I had and I don't know if she ever heard
it but I know she loved to hear her
son sing in church so I sang for her. Her
roommate loved it told me over and over again
oh here it comes with that song book again you
know but she died. Let me tell you also
that the nursing home was very sensitive in
this situation and I went to be with her body
at her death as she died. I beat the funeral
home there I beat the doctor there and the
staff came in the night staff of the nursing
home came in gathered together at the door
and said Dr. Davis we want you to know how
sweet your mother was how good she was to
us how much we loved her how much we appreciate
you and that meant a lot to me. But I want
you to know that there are times that you may
have to have someone to make those decisions
for you and I tell mature adults every place I
go to workshops get your children together
and along with the admonitions that Dr. Crofton
has made fill out that living will fill out
that advanced directive fill out that durable
medical power of attorney but at least get
your children by the nap of the neck and sit
them down and say here's what I want you to
do at my end of life and I tell them I said I
give them a little warning here let me tell
you what your children are going to do your
children are going to say oh no mom you're
going to live another 20 years let's don't talk
about that. Frankly younger people are
more fearful about talking about end of life
decisions especially with mom and dad involved
than they are maybe even about their own
situation but I just warned them that's what's going
to happen but get them to sit down anyway and
say I am serious I want you to listen
to me and I want us to talk about what I want
you to do if I'm not able to make those kinds
of decisions for myself. I just urge that to
every one of you and I've done that with
my children and I haven't filled out that
advanced directive but I need to get that
done. Let me tell you that more often than not
I believe it's an important decision that
has to be made by the family member or by that
individual themselves in consultation
with the physician. I know that every state has
different laws with regard to the form
for example of the living will. Every state has
its own form. Texas has a Texas Natural
Death Act and it tells you exactly what must be
in a legal living will. Each state is that
way but let me tell you more important than any
of this and any of the legalities is that
personal relationship that you have with that
physician and that communication that you
have with that physician as to what you want to
happen in those end of life decisions in
those end of life times. I think that is so
very, very important. With regard to this
definition and my time is up there are
procedures now that are very commonly used in hospitals
to do various surgeries where practically the
entire blood supply of a human being is
exchanged for some other saline solution that
is refrigerated and virtually all functions
stop with regard to heart, any functions of any
other organ practically for that surgery
period and then that blood is replaced and the
body warms and things start back to work
again. But if you depend upon those old
definitions of death they are just not adequate
in today's
world in today's reality. I have appreciated
your attention the way that you have listened
carefully to all of us and any of us, three of
us will be available to discuss any items
with you if you wish to come down afterwards.