Preparing for the End of Life

Dr. Kirth Steele, who practices practices intensive care medicine, urges readers to take personal responsibility in planning for the end of life.

This is where personal responsibility enters the picture. We owe it to our families to think about and discuss these things far in advance of the inevitable decline and/or devastating illness. This allows us to retain control of our destiny and to come to terms with our eventual death. This also represents a chance to provide a final gift to those closest to us, the gift of relieving them of a burden as we talk openly and honestly about how we want to end our lives. It gives us a chance to ease them and ourselves into a state of mind which is, admittedly, uncomfortable for all of us.

No matter how well we plan and how much we practice good health habits, death will come and for some, suffering along the way to death. However, we can spare ourselves and our family's needless suffering and indignity by thinking about our values and understanding what gives us meaning far in advance of our inevitable decline and/or devastating illness. Though we cannot control how we will die, we can choose how we approach our dying and how we care for ourselves and others in the process. That choice to care may be the most valuable possession we have.