Last edited Sun Feb 8, 2015, 08:52 PM - Edit history (3)
[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal]Living Wills and DNRs are good things but they are still non-sentient and that means they do carry some risk especially in situations where the prognosis is unclear or in situations that the patient did not consider when writing up the document.
For example, my mother has multiple medical issues and had both a DNR and a medical power of attorney given to my step father and me. About 4 1/2 years ago she had a seizure and was sent to our small town hospital. By the time she got there she was in a coma and they didn't know what was wrong with her and were going to send her to a bigger hospital in the nearest big city hospital when she had three more seizures and then stopped breathing.
Had we not over-ridden her DNR she would have died. But at that time, no one knew what was wrong with her. We didn't know if she would be able to recover from whatever was wrong with her or not.
But we knew why she had the DNR and why she had given us MPoA. She didn't want to be a vegetable living on machines for the rest of her life. However, we also knew that if there was a chance of her recovering and returning to any semblance of normalcy she would want us to take it.
Turns out that the seizures and coma were caused by a bad drug interaction. We think she stopped breath because of complications from her MS. She survived and made a full recovery and was grateful that we made that call.
I am not saying that DNRs are bad. Rather, I am saying that a medical power of attorney to someone who knows your end of life wishes, and who you know will respect them is even better! They can respond to these more nebulous situations in a way that only a living thinking human being can.
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