Happy New Year Let's Talk about Death: the Advance Directive After Party.

RantWoman writes up the workshop spoken of here:
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2014/12/merry-christmas-lets-talk-about-death.html


Warning: RantWoman is being METAPHORICAL here.
RantWoman, Care and Counsel keeps saying water is wet and you keep talking about snow and ice.
Yeah, and...?


We now return to regular Inner Blowtorch mode:
RantWoman, look at all these people who came. What nice couples. What nice help with notary and experience from a hospice nurse. What nice exclamations about people doing the paperwork and their healthcare providers losing it.

Yeah, and RantWoman will show up. RantWoman will bring the suggestion that if someone brings a notebook with them to medical appointments anyway, that would also  be a good place to keep a copy of the advanced directives, and maybe contact info for the people mentioned. And RantWoman does not know whether she mentioned having RantMom's documents in her purse, but she does.

And RantWoman will also show up with a couple tender moments from interpreting and with tales of a neighbor, a Jehovah's witness. JW neighbor can do these forms in her sleep because of Witnesses' beliefs about blood transfusions, but RantWoman can so imagine family members not being charmed by someone's beliefs.

In fact RantWoman can also relate: Little Sister at one point needed a blood transfusion. She had the hermanas from her church were insistent in Spanish about needing to pray over the blood. RantWoman who a. speaks but usually does not interpret in Spanish and b. tries VERY hard to avoid interpreting for family members still was the one to stop the nurses until the prayers were done. And if only one of these stories needed to stumble out of RantWoman's mouth this time....

RantWoman, it's only a volunteer program to do these presentations about Advanced directives, etc. Why do we gotta think about language access?

1. The place running the program has the same obligations about language access as any other health care organization.

2. Sooner or later you are likely to encounter the need to work with interpreters. Do your employers do anything to prepare you?

3. Some percentage of the people who might attend are gongto want to go home and talk to family members who do not speak English.and it REALLY matters to have correct terminology or at least a place to go look for parallel materials.

4. It would be nice if RantWoman could focus on the paperwork for her own self and let other people get dealt with later. It would be nice, but that is not RantWoman's reality. RantWoman cannot interact with this content without needing to think about materials in languages other than English. RantWoman can TRY to bypass yet another way to make herself unpopular around Little Sister's household (irrepressible Nephew has Adult half-sibilings...) but this still leaves frayed connections related to Ferrener Husband.

Here are some links RantWoman found; RantWoman is not prepared to vouch for the translations, only the reputation of the organizations whose websites she lists:
https://healthonline.washington.edu/get_topic.asp?topic=39&name=Patient+Rights
http://www.washingtonlawhelp.org/issues/aging-elder-law/guardianships-powers-of-attorney-2
http://www.pathwayshealth.org/resources/translated-materials.html
http://www.lawhelp.org/dc/resource/frequently-asked-questions-about-durable-powe


RantWoman, it's only a pilot and we are trying out ideas.

RantWoman interior monologue: RantWoman you keep offering help and they do not know what to do with it. RantWoman, you will show up. You will be present. You wil trust that...


From announcement for  workshop: "You are never too young to think about..."

Census of those in attendance:
Total: 15 or so; RantWoman apologizes for not counting more precisely.
Total younger than 60, counting presenter and RantWoman: 5.
Total who have been around Meeting less than 10 years: 0
Mention of childcare before workshop: 0
Total other than presenter responsible for the care of minor children: 0
mentions of situations involving minor children: 1 or 2 from one attender; nothing in the prepared booklet. Ummmm. RantWoman was called to share from her life in an email afterward.


RantWoman, it's only a pilot and we are trying out ideas.

Yeah, and RantWoman knows that what works in English among people with similar culture might or might not work for people with other cultural backgrouns so as long as you are trying out anyway, let's be honest about language access being a big issue for some families.

Yeah, and RantWoman is happy to sign your consent form about participation as long as you consent to free input including the above list of places with some topical material in multiple languages.


RantWoman, we have all these simple either / or questions we want you to think about.


Really? You do not know RantWoman very well. RantWoman can turn almost any survey instrument with ostensibly simple choices into open-ended essay questions.

Take food: the feel and texture of food turns out to be really important to RantWoman. RantWoman likes things that crunch. RantWoman likes strong flavors and spices that clean out her sinuses. Okay work with that.

Then write similar essays for all the other questions?

Actually, RantWoman wonders if there could be a little time to see whether anyone else in the room has too much to fit into the categories. Sometiems RantWoman really likes hearing about otehr people's too much too.

How about a couple illustrative cases:
Case one: the Rant Family ophthalmologist, ill with cancer. a rich life. Adult children, grandchildren. Content. At a certain point, clear not to linger.

Case two, RantWoman's neighbor Mr. Attack Receptionist. Mr. Attack Receptionist is on dialysis. He has had the lower parts of both legs amputated. Mr. Attack Receptionist is a HUGE sports fan. Even when he is on Facebook from the hospital or the rehab, he posts and wants to chat about Seattle sports teams with ANYONE willing to go near the topic. Unfortunately this does not include RantWoman except in terms of appreciating the anthropological phenomenon of sports fans. Mr. Attack Receptionist already has such a battle to stay alive, RantWoman cannot imagine him signing ANYTHING in advance. Further, RantWoman expects he will still be rooting for the local teams long past when anyone pulls a plug. And he will still be a member of the Still Didn't Get the Memo Committee on Email Immoderation long after that!


It was pretty clear to RantWoman before the workshop that she probably was going to be nowhere near anything to notarize, but RantWoman was surprised about the clarity that emerged from a short interval for reflection:

This life is really precious to me. Even if it looks really difficult to you, I am figuring on staying around as long as possible! I hope it's fun for other people too but I am not necessarily leaving just because it's not fun for others.But if I cannot taste or smell or respond to music and sounds and preferably also find ways to say something is funny and it is really obvious that no fun is happening and I cannot express that myself, then....
And when I die, do not worry about needing to reconstitute me for any Rapture. Relatives who might be worried about this should be assured that if God can pull off the Rapture, I am pretty sure anyone who needs it will get reconstituted in the process. Cremate me. Return me to the earth. If you can leave me in permanent civil disobedience somewhere that needs divine attention but preferably also somewhere with a good view, trees, ocean or water, wind....

Okay, now the question of who....

...and where and not just lying in someone's office safe...

A blog post that seems to RantWoman to belong here:
http://wagingnonviolence.org/2015/01/organize-anyone/


and a couple more resources just thrown in by the way.

http://www.iflscience.com/environment/what-do-when-youre-dead-science-edition
http://peoplesmemorial.org/