Blog Post #9 Health-Care Directive

Michael Dang
Hon101

The Health-Care Dilemma

Upon looking at the decisions that need to be made when considering a health-care directive, I found the choice between having someone make my decision or having a living will to be very tough. Because I’m at the ripe age of nineteen, it’s very hard to think about this topic since it seems so distant in the future. I’m just a young adult trying to finish college, so the topic of making my own health-care directive didn’t really cross my mind until now. But in the world, anything can happen. There are disasters and horrible events that occur everyday which result in deaths, and the thought of that can be very scary. There is no guarantee to how long one can live.

Two years ago, my grandma had a stroke that made her bed-ridden in a hospital. She started off fine the first few months after the stroke as she was still lively and animated in her room. When my family and I would visit, she would talk with us about her day and we would ask her how she was doing. She would always complain about how she wanted to go home to my auntie’s house, but there wasn’t anything we could do. The doctors still told us that she needed to be in the hospital. As a few more months passed by, my grandma had another stroke. This time, it was a lot worse. She could barely speak, and she had great difficulty moving. She stayed in her bed most of the day and only got out of bed to use the bathroom with the assistance of the nurses. When we visited her, I felt remorse and sorrow. It was hard to see my grandma like that, and I could hardly communicate with her. But she wanted to make her own decisions about her situation. She wanted life support, and she wanted to live as long as possible. So my family and I honored her wishes. Even if her life force was declining, we wanted her to live as long as well. She passed peacefully in her sleep with family members around her. 

If I had to make a decision right now, I would choose to have my own living will. I wouldn’t want someone else to decide whether to take me off life support or not. It’s a heavy burden to bear for others.