Wills, Advanced Medical Directive & Power of Attorney

Do you have all of your proper paperwork completed and ready?

Today I watched a new series on PBS titled "Your Turn to Care". It is a four part series on caring for our aging parents which touches on some of the things we as caregivers face.

One segment touched on the need to have all the proper paperwork completed in advance of any issues arising so that we are, as the one gentlemen put it, " proactive instead of reactive". If we are properly prepared for what we know will in time come up, we can be much more relaxed and confident that we can handle any situation to come up. There are three very important pieces of information that ALL adults should have completed, not just the elderly. They are:

1. A Will
2. Advanced Medical Directive / Advance Health Care Directive
3. Power of Attorney

Today I will talk about the Will. Many people have the mistaken view

Caring for Mom and Dad

Dear Friends,

Did you see the recent PBS show entitled: Caring For Mom & Dad ?

 

Until now my blog posts have been about being a professional caregiver. However today I want to switch gears a bit and talk about being a PAL caregiver for a family member. You see I have done both. If you have read my posts you know  I have worked for other families caring for their loved ones, however I have never posted about caring for a family member as I have done for many many years. I can tell you from experience that they are in so many ways very different

My father passed away in 2001 suddenly, leaving my mother, who has severe macular degeneration, to live alone. My siblings and I did not feel that it was safe for her to live alone as she was about 45 minutes away from both my sister and I  and could not drive or care for other needs on her own. She was 77 at the time. Without hesitation we decided to have mom move in with us and she lived with my husband and I for 9 1/2 years. She has now been living with my sister for the last 4 1/2 years and is now 91.

The stress of having someone else in your household is heavy. The decisions you have to make for a family member such as a mom or dad are complicated and not always easy.