Just Shoot Me is Not an Option

How many of us have had this conversation with friends and even family. We want a "good death". We don't want to linger or suffer or be incapacitated for months and years the way we have seen other family members groan into dying. We also do not want our partners, friends and legal advocates to be tortured by making decisions and having to guess.

In most cases all we have jokingly and uncomfortably told them is, "If I get to that point just shoot me." I have said that too. And I've made the jokes about ice bergs, long Ambien swims in the ocean and plastic bags. But really. In most cases all of that is inaccurate and much, much too late in the process.

In today's Wall Street Journal there is a powerful and very helpful article on how one plans and carries out--and communicates --a good death. Not a painless death and not necessarily an easy death but one that fits one's personal criteria of "good".

Take a look at the article below written by Katy Butler about her mother, Valerie Butler. And then gather your partner, children. power of attorney, medical advocate and start talking facts.

Here is the link:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324577304579054880302791624.html

Mortality--Christopher Hitchens

The link below is to a terrific review of Christopher Hitchens last book, "Mortality". This appeared in today's Wall Street Journal. Hitchens, a prolific writer and critic, died last December at age 62 of esophageal cancer. All of his writing is important because he was one of our sharpest, smartest social critics and, because he kept writing all the way through his cancer to hours before his death.

As Henry Allen writes here, Hitchens was  a critic of cancer and of "battling cancer". "People don't have cancer: They are reported to be battling cancer--You don't hear that about long-term sufferers from heart disease or kidney failure." (I suspect it's because we still, on some level, blame people for those illnesses.)

Here's the review. Take a look. The book is available now.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444812704577605110400199868.html