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At the request of @ryankanno here is what was discussed/decided. Keep in mind that both myself and Other Dylan work in hospice so death is a normal part of our lives. Also, I will probably drift off topic a lot. 1/x
That there isn't a lot of easy to digest information about death and dying. Being Mortal was close, but I felt written more for people my parents age. On Death and Dying is interesting but dated. Having spent a lot of time with people whose loved one is dying, no one is ready.2/x
Part of this is because as a society we don't like talking about death and dying. This is because of fear. No one wants to die, and yet we are all going to die. You can postpone it, but the reaper gets their due. How can we start talking about it? 3/x
More specifically: How do you talk to your parents about it? Because they are probably going to die before you. And as their child you should be intimately involved in the process. Not in a smother them with a pillow kind of way, but being there for them. 4/x
Watching someone die is hard. Regret is harder. One of the ideas that my job focuses on is that no one should die alone. People are scared enough of dying and to be alone while it is happening is scary. If there is someone holding your hand, you know that you are not alone. 5/x
Back to parents. Having an open and honest conversation about death with your parents will change your relationship with them. But you should have it sooner rather than later. This will help you understand their wishes and fears. While were at it, lets look at POAs 6/x
POAs, or powers of attorney, come in all shapes and sizes. It depends on your state (and probably country) how they work. But the basic idea is that you are able to appoint someone to take care of things when you are physically or mentally unable to do so. 7/x
This is super important to have in place prior to being incapacitated. And it is not enough to just name someone to be your POA. You need to have a conversation about what their wishes are. To dive deep into that, let us focus on MDPOA (medical POA) 8/x
Here are things that your MDPOA will need to know: Do you want artificial nutrition? This means tube feed, which is invasive. If you want tube feeding, how long do you want to be on it? At what point do you want to be taken off tube feedings? 9/x
Do you wish to be resuscitated if your heart stops? Spoiler alert: you don't. I am 37 years old and I have a 27% chance of surviving CPR in a hospital. I used this to calculate that: gofarcalc.com And I didn't even select any of the other options other than age. 10/x
If we just change the age to 85, which is still pretty young amongst the senior crowd that I work with, the percentage drops to 9.4% That is not a great chance and that is assuming that you are otherwise healthy. 11/x
When your parents make you POA make sure you talk about this. This is also a good time to discuss what they want to do for a funeral. Because you do not want to be doing that right after someone dies. You will not be in a good headspace. 12/x
What I am hoping to do is figure out how to get this information, and much more information about death and dying, collected and presented in a way that makes it digestible. Something that will give people a roadmap to follow to have these conversations. 13/x
Ideally this should be a combination of written work, videos, podcasts, and any other media that can be used. As a generation we are going to be dealing with a lot of death. There hasn't been a huge war to inure us to death. 14/x
Instead of people dying in a far off land to the bad guys, we will be present when death is happening to our loved ones and those of our friends. We will need to learn to support our friends and to receive that support in turn. 15/x
I am happy to discuss more, but this got a lot longer than I expected. Please remember that death is a part of life. And while it is scary, you can face it. You are brave enough to survive the death of a loved one. 16/x
