Do Not Resuscitate

 

A DNR the medical folk call it.

A do-not-resuscitate order (DNR), also known as no code or allow natural death, is a legal order, written or oral depending on country, indicating that a person does not want to receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) if that person’s heart stops beating. Sometimes it also prevents other medical interventions. The legal status and processes surrounding DNR orders vary from country to country. The order to do-not-resuscitate is placed by a physician based on a combination of medical judgments and patient wishes and values.

 

Fewer MRIs and CT scans, fewer medications or even fewer bedside visits from doctors. A DNR could cost you your life. Having a DNR means that if your heart stops or you can’t breathe, medical staff will let you die naturally, instead of rushing to give you cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

 

A DNR is a document that specifies that the patient does not want to be resuscitated. A Living Will is a legal document wherein the patient designates if they want life support continued if they are incapacitated and in a “terminal condition”, an “end stage condition”, or in a “persistent vegetative state”.

 

The best choice for one person might not be best for another. An important difference between a will and a trust is property subject to a will goes through the probate process while property that was owned by a trust when a person passed away avoids probate. Probate has both pluses and minuses.

Unlike a will, a living trust passes property outside of probate court. There are no court or attorney fees after the trust is established. Your property can be passed immediately and directly to your named beneficiaries. Trusts tend to be more expensive than wills to create and maintain.

 

Each of us must face the reality that no one gets out alive. All the modern medicine can’t keep us going forever.

 

Some may hope for the family to be gathered around your bed looking at your fade away attached to tubes and machinery holding hands and singing songs or wish for doctors and nurses to rush in sticking needles in your heart and pounding on your chest to keep you lasting a little bit longer. Not many wish to be shot in the head or have their car crash into a tree, but that happens too. 

 

Quality of life.

 

Just like your car when it starts to rust and have parts replaced to get another mile down the road, the body (our body) starts to fail. Go see a physician when the inspection sticker is due. Check your blood sugar, pulse, and breathing and refill a handful of pills recommended (but not guaranteed) to keep you going a little longer.

 

No matter what they say, you feel the aches and pains of old rusty parts and know the light at the end of the tunnel is getting closer.

 

So my last visit I signed up. When the body is done, so let it be. It’s been a good ride so far and there might be a few more miles left, but I understand reality.

 

I’m not promoting it, but it is an option. Made it this far on my decisions, so here is another one.

 

This is what it looks like: