Parish Nurse Ministries at MCLC
Nurturing health in body, mind, and spirit
News from Sue
We live in an age of planning. We make educational plans, we hire financial planners, wedding planners: what about planning for your health? Have you thought about what kind of care you would want if your health were to suddenly change? Have you thought about who you would want making and communicating those decisions for you? Honoring Choices is a program that assists you in clarifying your values and choices around health care, as well as formalizing and communicating those choices with those who will be asked the tough questions. While the Honoring Choices document is a formal recording of these items, the Honoring Choices process begins with serious reflection and communication with your loved ones.
The Honoring Choices process involves thinking and talking about complex, sensitive issues. A good first step is to reflect on what makes life meaningful to you. What are your thoughts, feelings, and values about life and how it is lived? Be specific: many say “no heroics” or “I don’t want to be a burden” – but what exactly does that mean to you? What is realistic for your own situation? Your physician can be most helpful here, especially if you have any chronic conditions such as heart or kidney disease. It is also important to involve your loved ones in the discussion, and to select a trusted person to serve as your Health Care Agent. Make sure they know you have chosen them, and that they are willing to serve in this capacity. You may wish to appoint more than one agent.
As you decide what kinds of care you would wish to receive, formalize these decisions in an Advance Directive – a legal document which communicates your choices to health care providers. Any competent person 18 or older may complete an Advance Directive. The forms are legal once signed, dated, and witnessed by two people who are not the agent, a relative of the person signing, their health care provider, or someone in a position to financially benefit from the estate of the person making the document. Copies of the directive should be given to the agent(s), family members, and health care providers. Do not lock it away in a safe-deposit box where it cannot be accessed when needed!
The document becomes effective if or when you cannot make your own decisions: as long as you are making your own choices, you control your medical care. You may change your Advance Directive at any time; good times to review are the “Five D’s:” decade (turning 50, 60, etc), death of a loved one, divorce, diagnosis (new onset of a chronic condition), or decline. Let your health care agent know of the update, distribute the new documents, and destroy any old copies.
If you already have a Living Will, it remains valid. You may wish to review it to see if your choices remain in line with your values, or make sure your family is aware of your choices.
Copies of the Honoring Choices document, as well as helpful materials for beginning the conversation with your family, definition of terms, and explanation of options such as CPR or tube feedings are available at the web site listed below or by calling Minnehaha Communion at 612-722-9527. Certified Advance Care Planners are also available through the church to assist you and your family with the process.
Reflections
Have you ever stopped to consider the life-giving qualities of water? Our bodies contain a high percentage of water, and we can survive longer without food than without water. As you read in the article above, water supports life as it washes away germs and keeps us hydrated.
In our faith lives, too, water is life-giving. In baptism we are washed free from sin and into new life. If this sounds like quite a feat for water, remember that it is God’s Word that brings it about. Baptism is about what God does, not the actions of the pastor or the one being baptized. Through the power of this Word, our old, sinful nature is drowned and a new creation is begun. Check it out the next time you have your Lutheran Book of Worship open: “…in the waters of baptism we are reborn children of God and inheritors of eternal life.” (LBW, pg 121. Copyright © 1978 Augsburg Fortress, reprinted by permission Augsburg Fortress Liturgies License 31198.) We are redeemed from sin, death, and the power of the devil as we receive forgiveness of sins and life eternal. This promise becomes especially powerful at the close of life, when we are reminded that “(having) been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (LBW, pg 206, op cit). At a time when the reality of death draws us up short, the promise of life brings a word of good news.
Martin Luther encouraged all to make the sign of the cross daily in remembrance of their baptism. As you run water this day, whether to drink, to wash, or for any other use; consider making the sign of the cross on your forehead in remembrance of the life that water brings.
Resource Links of the Month
Parting Thoughts
Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. (Douglas MacArthur)
Sue Arens, Parish Nurse, AiM
Valborg Tollefsrud, Parish Nurse for former Our Redeemer members
Available Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, and by appointment
Prayer requests: www.minnehahacommunion.org
