Oops! Said the D-Word Out Loud!
Really folks, talking about dying won’t kill you
I did my end-of-life options talk thing again yesterday, and nobody died.
This time it was for residents in my senior living place — I call it the Geezer House because why not use appropriate language all around?
It is appropriate to talk about dying stuff, even if you’re not. And actually most of us will, unless I’ve missed something. My talk, for a very fine nonprofit on whose board I happily serve, is all about choices at the end of life.
The gist of it is: short of getting hit by a truck (or a driverless car, which is my fear these days, since I live in tech-nutty San Francisco) there are things you can do to control how your final weeks and months might be spent. Also, where.
If you really want to spend them in a zillion-dollar ICU or icy hospital room, that’s fine with me. Just ignore the issue and that’s probably how you’ll meet your exit from this planet. (The vast majority of Americans do this. I hope not to be one of them.)
Say you’ve got a horrid terminal disease and more pain and suffering than you enjoy…
