Words Matter

What is end-of-life planning? What is a death panel? We live in an age where words matter. Speeches and videos go viral on the Internet and cable news. Headlines shaped by manipulating parties are designed to create vivid pictures in people’s minds to cause a reaction. It's nauseating how predictably people comply.

End-of-Life planning suggests that our lives will end. Not exactly news. Death panel suggests a firing squad (Nevermind Al Quaida, your government wants to "pull the plug on Grandma"). I’ve come to believe that humans have the strongest survival instinct on the planet. Even while we knowingly pollute our land and water, supersize our meals, and consume toxic substances on a daily basis, we think we will live forever.
Sorry folks.

For those of us who have helplessly watched an older relative or friend suffer from a chronic disease and waste away in the hospital, poked with needles and fed with tubes, another possibility exists. The possibility that we might avoid agonizing hours on a ventilator watching family members cry at our bedside. We will still get old and sick, but we will choose comfort over intervention, nature over machinery. We’ll opt for pain management versus another invasive "cure." We’ll accept. There is no cure for death.

No one is saying everyone needs to sign a living will. But everyone certainly has the right to know they exist, and to understand how it might impact a family at the most crucial decision-making moment in their lives. Whether you sign it or opt out, there is relief. Knowing the facts and making a fully-informed decision takes the burden off a family that may have to guess your wishes in the future.

End-of-life planning is what grown-ups do. They plan for themselves, and they plan for their children. Why should anyone but the patient decide what treatment plan to deliver when disaster strikes? A grown-up makes that decision him or herself, in advance, with counseling.

The phrase death panel was specifically designed to incite fear and demonize people in government. The problem is: it was spoken by a woman who makes her living working in government.

We drastically compromise our future by our own inability to understand and act upon anything longer than a sensational headline.

End-of-life planning used to sound like a reasonable phrase. Lately, it has been dished up with side orders of horrific intentions meant to misinterpret its meaning. So let’s acknowledge that words matter and change them to suit the activity. How about comfort planning or the family directive. Personally, I like the phrase “living will.” Let's go back to that. It suggests consideration and intent, that the living will make their intentions clear!

As far as the label death panel goes, it doesn’t deserve another label—it doesn’t exist.