Final Wishes

My career in the military has made me face uncomfortable questions surrounding paralyzing injuries or death. However, being a younger adult, I would tend to elude the issue, assuming I would not have to deal with it. The Five Wishes caused me to stop and face a different part of death I had never seen before. The first wish is "The Person I Want To Make Health Care Decisions For Me When I Can't Make Them For Myself." I have answered this question before, but not to any real depth. The five wishes opened a new series of questions in my mind. The person I grant this wish to could move me to a nursing home, accept or decline medical treatment, even donate my organs. There was much more to this wish than "just pulling the plug."

The second wish was "My Wish For The Kind Of Medical Treatment I Want Or Don't Want." This question required me to think logically about what I consider to be death. Is it a permeant coma, brain damage, or when the heart stops ticking. I just placed someone in charge of my well-being, should I not be able to care for myself. This second wish holds them accountable to accept only the care I originally desired. This provides a type of comfort, like a safety net for the first wish. The third wish address an area of dying that once again, I had not confronted before, "My Wish For How Comfortable I Want To Be." I had never given much thought of physical or emotional comfort in death. Do I want pain medication, personal care, or even someone to read to me. This reminded me of when my Great-grandmother was passing away, her last spoken wish was for someone to read the Psalms to her. How would she have felt if there was no one near enough to hear her last wish. This third wish provides comfort in knowing that that wish would be carried out.

Wish four, "My Wish For How I Want People To Treat Me." As a child I use to joke around about how I would die, normally it would include a reference to some fiery crash. As I have aged, that childhood illusion has gone. It left vidid real questions in its place. Who do I want around me when I am on my death bed. I know that I do not want to be patronized when I near death, but now I can be assured. More importantly to me, I prefer die at home. The five wishes help relay that information for me. Lastly, there is the fifth wish, "My Wish For What I Want My Loved Ones To Know." In reading this it reminded me of how my Grandmother called me two weeks before she passed away, just to tell me she loved me. This fifth wish will ensure that if I am unable to communicate with them, they understand my love and care for them. If I have a different view on how to care for my remains, this guarantees that my wishes will be respected even if my family doesn't agree with them. The five wishes is a excellent way to ensure that one is treated with dignity and respect, even if at a later time, they are unable