How many of you have a DNR

I do. When the VA is your health care provider, they insist you fill out end-of-life paperwork.

I do. I told my brother, if there is a plug to pull, to pull it. I know my twin wouldn’t be able to do that, but my brother would have the guts to do so. I also have a cemetery plot. I snapped up the one next to my parents, so that a stranger didn’t get it before I needed a forever-home.

Since the COVID epidemic began, I’ve left my hospice insurance policy on top of my desk, so I don’t get dumped in a crappy hospice, if I can’t communicate.

Are there any EMTs who could explain whether they do or do not have to follow dnrs and advanced directives? I've heard that they do follow them if they are out in plain sight in the home, and I've heard they resuscitate no matter what to avoid lawsuits.

I know there are no guarantees, but I'd like to hear from anyone who knows.

My father didn't have a DNR but he had expressed to the entire family his wishes to DNR, he had an AAA Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm he was given only a 5% chance to survive and even if he survived they said he would basically be a vegetable the rest of his life. He was in a Lutheran run hospital, and they just weren't going to allow him to die while he still had Medicare coverage that they could bilk for every dime. The doctors told us it wouldn't have matter if he had a written DNR, they would do what they thought best.

They decided his gall bladder needed removed, and then his spleen. Forty-five days in intensive care on a ventilator. Once the forty-fifth day came they changed their minds and agreed to take him off the ventilator and feeding tube, guess why, medicare reduces what they will pay after 45 days. He died two days later. The only good thing I can say about the hospital and doctors is they agreed to take what insurance would pay and forgive the rest. They wouldn't have gotten anything anyway, my parents didn't have much but they didn't care much about his or my mothers suffering as long as there was still money to be made off him.

DNRs are usually reserved for the elderly and infirm— people would have a very hard time recovering anyway

I have a DNR because I work in inpatient healthcare and don’t want to live on a PEG tube or a trach. No thanks. If I permanently can’t breathe or swallow on my own, it’s time to shrug off this mortal coil.

Sadly if you get inter-facility transferred, one facility may have your DNR but the next may not. This is why some people have had it tattooed on themselves. I have it in my EMR as well but then not all healthcare EMRS are the same. It’s a problem. I only hope that my spouse and my contingent power of attorney follow me with the paperwork in the ambulance.

R5, the very vast majority of people that are resuscitated never recover and most die very soon after. If they don’t, they have major irreversible damage. The longer you’re without oxygen, the more serious it’s going to be. If you’re a vegetable, it’s not worth being a vegetable for months or years.

My mom was resuscitated and she was a vegetable afterwards. She was found face down and nobody had any idea how long she was without oxygen. They should have left her alone. She hung on for months, the hospital was constantly threatening to throw her into the street and demanded we care for a completely helpless person at home. We were all poor and had to work.

They wanted us to draw from our apparently vast fortune and spend the rest of our lives nursing a person who couldn’t eat and would have needed a feeding tube and diapers. She died very shortly before she reached her lifetime ceiling.

Believe me, none of these people care anything about you. Even a nurse admitted to me that’s how the hospital makes a profit, people on life support.

R6, is obeying a tattooed DNR legal and do hospital staff do it?

My friend’s. Other had hip replacement surgery at age 83. She had a stroke, and lingered. He wanted to find a doctor who would facilitate her passing. He asked my advice, and I suggest he speak with her long term physician, that no doctor who’s a stranger would care to be involved with that. He had t thought of that. She passed away not long after, and I’ll always wiponder if he offed-her.

R7, mostly a DNR tattoo doesn’t hold up and the laws vary per state. It is a cue for emergency medical personnel, as to what your wishes are- if they see it. But it doesn’t mean it’s a slam dunk. Most patients are made a full code status on admission unless it’s a readmission, and the paperwork is on file already, unless you have a strong spouse or advocate and they insist that your paperwork get scanned in and that your are changed to a DNR, or that you got transferred in with a POLST (a physician order for life sustaining treatment) from another facility. And the latter are often questioned if they are old or incomplete.

It’s a very complex issue and I work in this field and you can’t even get all the providers to agree.

OP, you need p three things:

A healthcare proxy, so someone can make medical decisions for you, if you can’t. This includes a DNR.

A limited power of attorney, for a trusted someone to make financial decisions.

A will, so that your collection of lardIs will be kept together and not sold piecemeal.

You can find on the internet, lists of things you should do to prepare for death. I live in a city and park on the street. There is no way my family would know the license plate number or where to find the car, unless I left it in a note for them. I included an inventory of my coin collection, as it’s worth a lot of money; a business card for a good realtor in my neighborhood; the name of my doctor, my passwords in code form that they should be able to crack but a thief will not, and so forth.

When my grandfather had terminal cancer, he put a DNR on his front door. I think my mom didn't really understand it, that when you are that close to death it isn't helpful to prolong it with machines. She was very upset by seeing the DNR when she visited.

Then when her cancer became terminal it was very difficult. She refused a DNR and did not want hospice so we had to find a rehab place to take her as she wasn't strong enough to get out of bed (at this point she was just weeks from death). You have to do PT every day in rehab but everyone on the floor made concessions due to not knowing what to do with her.

She was in incredible pain and they don't give morphine for rehab patients, so it took everyone on board to try to talk her into hospice for proper pain meds. She said she felt it was suicide to agree to hospice, she genuinely would not understand that there was nothing left to be done and it was completely heartbreaking to go through.

We spent those last weeks going to different facilities trying to find a place that would take her that wasn't quite hospice but might have better pain management, that had enough nurses that would keep an eye on her, driving all over. She finally agreed to a DNR and hospice 2 days before her death, I think she finally realized the end was near.

I still don't understand why she thought the way that she did, as if sheer will would keep her alive. I've now made clear to everyone around me that I'm okay with dying and don't anyone dare to try to keep me alive. Maybe I should tattoo it just to be certain.

If this WH resident wins, I will have these orders- “if this hearts is not tick tok-in, don’t come a shocking.”

R3 - I can only speak for Virginia, but we must have the paperwork in hand. Bracelets, tattoos, family members begging you to let them go mean nothing legally. If there is no DNR paperwork, we work the code. It's very sad, most of the people are terminally ill and very frail, we are just crushing their brittle bodies and it's pointless in those cases. So get that DNR and have it readily available.

If you have particular burial instructions, you should make them known or leave them in a conspicuous place. If you put them in your will, it might not be read until after you’ve already been buried.

A DNR is important, but it is imperative that you tell your family your wishes because a DNR can’t possibly cover every situation. I have told my immediate family that if there is any doubt, err on the side of letting me go. Please let your loved ones off the hook by making your wishes very, very clear.

I'm grateful for all the information from posters, but this is terrifying! The idea that hospitals will keep you alive and suffering for economic gain, while I've lived long enough and seen enough to believe it, is just heinous. I guess that's capitalism.

At the very minimum, education & healthcare should have nothing to do with profit/loss considerations.

R16, I don’t think hospitals keep people alive for the profit in doing so. I think that, in the absence of a DNR, the default is to try to save everyone possible, under the ideas that “where there is life, there is hope.” Also, in the absence of a DNR, the hospital, might be subject to a law suit for letting someone die. The staff might also face criminal charges for manslaughter or murder, even. It’s simpler, in the absence of a DNR, to try to keep people alive.

In another thread, I read that most physicians who deal with terminal patients tend to have DNRs for themselves, because they see how awful it is when people are kept alive despite being past their due date.

I’ve also read that the greatest healthcare expense that people experience in their lives, occurs in the last weeks of life, in the absence of a DNR.

I did but changed countries, so no.

I've heard the same, R17. But doctors don't count. They're allowed to do what they want and will receive professional courtesy. But I've heard/read that doctors can refuse to honor dnrs because of their religious beliefs, and I think the profit motive could be nicely cloaked as "Where there's life, there's hope." I would like my decisions taken seriously and honored because that is the law, but I've seen the law subverted in most areas of life. I guess I'll have to pay thousands to some attorney just to be on call when I get comatose so he/she can force them to follow the advanced directive and DNR.

My father agreed to have a DNR, but he said that we were to make sure he was really, really dead, first, lol. He died on the toilet, which I’ve heard is pretty common. Straining to poop gives people with bad hearts a heart attack or stroke. Fortunately he’d been mostly in good health to the end, and went quickly.

Obamacare originally created a medical code that physicians could use, allowing them to be paid for, a discussion of a DNR for the patients. This was what the Right misrepresented as ‘Death Panels”, to put grandma prematurely to death. The Dems has to strip that provision from the bill to, stop this disingenuous accusation. I think doctors were completely prohibited from having that discussion at all, now.

I made my brother as my health care proxy, because I think he’d have the guts to pull the plug, if necessary. I know I couldn’t make my twin sister my HC proxy, because no matter how many times I might tell her in advance, to pull the plug, if there is a plug, I know she wouldn’t have the guts to actually do it.

My experience with my parents is that survivors do whatever they damn well please. My Mom had long expressed a desire to be cremated, but after she died, her survivors rationalized that she didn’t really mean it. I didn’t force the issue because Mom was dead, and wouldn’t suffer to ignore that wish.,

The same goes for my parents’ wills. There was a probate judge to make sure the executors didn’t go completely off the rails, but my experience was that the executors did whatever they pleased, and if you were an heir but not executor, and the probate judge ignored your complaint, you would have to sue to challenge an executor’s decision.

My friend Tommy was with his partner for over 20 years. Tommy tended to him as he died from AIDS in 2004. This included keeping him clean when he was too weak to go to the bathroom. His millionaire partner willed Tommy $200,000 (cheapskate), and left the rest to his family. He made his twin brprother executor. The twin always hated my friend, Tommy. The twin refused to give Tommy the $200,000, and even had him evicted from his home, as it was in his late partner’s name. Tommy never got that $200,000; but he did lose $200,000 in legal fees trying to get his inheritance.

You only get to die once, it’s not the time to settle scores. It’s important not to leave dissent and hurt feelings after you pass, because there’s no way to make amends, later. I say, “you only get to die once, so don’t fuck it up.”

My Grandmother and Mother both fucked it up. I’d love to hear an explanation from them, but of course, I can’t, because they’re dead.

When one lives alone one prepares.

Tattoos are not legally binding in any state to my knowledge. They can, however, give some guidance when there's no agreement on what the patient would have wanted and an ethics committee needs to be called in.

I have a DGNDDLHDDOSP "Dear God, No, Doctor, Don't Let Him Die, Do Something, Please!" This policy also provides 3 females who will crowd around my bed crying and collapsing and importuning my physician.

I just had major surgery and I read somewhere that I have one. I never signed one.

The closest hospital to me is a Catholic Hospital, pretty much any religious hospital won't let you die despite you wishes.

It is appalling that someones last wishes would be ignored. Have a little respect. I'm one of those people that is going to found dead alone in my apartment days after I've "left the building". When people finally realize the awful smell in the hallway is coming from my apartment and they put two and two together. I'll have a note somewhere requesting I be cremated by the city but they'll probably want to charge someone so who knows if it will work out.

My brother jokes that he intends to crawl into the forest to die, like animals do.

Due to COVID, I keep an envelop on my desk, conspicuously, with my hospice insurance and medical insurance, in case I’m incommunicado.

My neighbor recently died. We don’t know how, but his drinking was very advanced, and I think he fell, hit his head, and bled to death. He wasn’t found for over a week, maybe more than a month. And his place sure did stink. It cost the condo assistance over $10,000 to clean up the place, after he died.

bump