Feel Great | Coffee with Cheryl

An important question…

Okay, first of all, I have no idea what happened to the fonts on here…they’re acting funky, and I just don’t have time to try to figure it out, so bear with me, okay?

Secondly, a paper I’m writing for my philosophy class got me thinking about all of you, my lovely readers. Our assigned subject is assisted suicide. Not a pleasant subject, I know, but how many times have we seen stories in the paper about how a person becomes incapacitated to the point of being a vegetable and the family is left trying to figure out what the person would want them to do?

Both times I went into the hospital to give birth, I was asked if I wanted to fill out a living will. For those of you who aren’t aware, a living will is a legal document that tells your family what to do should you become incapacitated…from temporarily being unable to make decisions, to the worst case scenario – whether to keep trying to resuscitate you should you have medical emergencies. It allows you to choose someone to be in charge, saving possible bad feelings and power struggles between family members, and they HAVE to do what you say in the document. For example, I wouldn’t want my family to be subjected to the costs and stress of caring for me if I were to be incapacitated to the point of them not even being able to tell if I am even really “there”. My living will states that should this happen, I want them to allow me to die and not take extraordinary measures to keep me alive. This is far from assisted suicide, but it’s something everyone should think about, especially when there are spouses and children involved.

If you’re interested in filling out a living will because you’ve got a medical situation coming up, ask the hospital staff if you can have one. If you just want to fill one out in general, write out your wishes and have it notarized with witnesses present, and make sure you give copies to all the parties involved.

Personally, I hope I nor anyone close to me ever needs to fulfill the wishes of a living will, but I take comfort in knowing that my family won’t have to endure any undue stress or burden should the circumstances ever arise.

Technorati Tags: emergency, Family, family health, incapacitated, living will

Someone send me an iPad – QUICK!

Yes, this is the university where I am studying.

Okay, I was well aware of the fact that getting a college education at 39-years-old while parenting 2 boys under 6 was going to be hard. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine it would be this hard.

I get that college isn’t supposed to be easy. Its supposed to be work. A lot of work. Fine. Totally prepared for that.

I just looked at my next class’ syllabus, and I seriously think they’re trying to kill us. I really wasn’t prepared for our workload to more than double for the 2nd time.

With the amount of reading we have to do in my upcoming class, an iPad – even an old one – could be a life-saver simply because I wouldn’t be tied to a desk for so many hours a day. Unfortunately, I’ve been watching eBay all morning, and everything is out of my price range.