Fear is not going to stop the process.
No matter what people do to avoid the issue, death is our final frontier.
So why not make the best of it by living our dying.
That includes talking candidly with family members while life is good – not when an emergency strikes.
For 25 years, Residential Care Medical Director Trevor Janz worked as an emergency room doctor in Nelson. Since retiring from the ER two years ago, he has become a palliative care doctor, working in residential care with the frailest of the frail in their last one to three years of life.
He has cared for people who can no longer, walk, talk, speak or even swallow and says that often issues arise between the person at the end of life who is suffering and ready to go, and family members who can’t bear the thought of losing them.
Janz will describe how much richer life is when we make dying a normal part of living.
“I’ve had lots of conversations with people when they’re faced with sudden changes to their health, when they have a heart attack or a stroke and they’re faced with making important decisions about what do we do to keep them alive,” he says, . “Often by time you get there, you’re not able to make the choice.”
Janz says those crises are often when family members disagree on a course of treatment, putting doctors in the middle of an argument that does not need to take place.
He says one of the most difficult issues is when a family member has made very clear to some what their wishes would be if they were incapacitated by a major medical event such as a stroke.
“Dad has had a stroke; he can’t walk, talk or feed himself – he can’t even swallow, but the confounding factor is often the family will panic,” Janz says, noting that although the father would not like to live that way, his son is not ready to let him go. But the daughter, who spent more time with her father, knows how much he would hate to remain alive in that condition. “They go head to head… families are torn in half because this causes a tremendous amount of strife and is a huge burden to families.”
Aging may not be fun, but it will happen to everybody and as people age, they become frailer and often suffer chronic illnesses or major health complications that require more and more medical interventions with poorer quality of life.
“You’re not having much good fun,” Janz says wryly.
He urges families to choose a time when they are not in crisis to think carefully and openly discuss what the person in question really wants.
Clarity makes the doctors’ response easier and helps in the grieving process,” Janz says, noting children are often left with enormous guilt about whether they did the right thing. “No child should be forced to do that, and knowing what the dying person wants gives kids the gift of relieving them of a terrible responsibility.”
Far from being a preacher of doom and gloom, Janz is a fun, witty speaker, who says knowing there is a spiritual world beyond this life brings joy.
A presentation of the Shuswap North Okanagan Division of Family Practice, “Let’s Talk About Our Dying” takes place at 6:30 p.m. April 20 at the Prestige Harbourfront Resort.
Everyone is invited but seating is limited so reserve your place no later than April 14 by sending an email to snorsvp@gmail.