Dear Judy,
My 78-year-old mother long ago did what I notice you always suggest to your online readers: she wrote an Advance Medical Directive, which gave detailed end-of-life instructions in the event she became terminally ill and incapacitated.
Well that is what she is now — incapacitated and dying. Thyroid cancer and congestive heart failure. You name it, she has it. Naturally I am miserable, and so is my younger sister. We both love our mother very much. But we don’t want her to suffer when there’s no hope. The trouble is our brother.
He hasn’t been around much these last years — which is kind of understandable since he was doing time in Texas. Now he’s out of prison, and he’s pitching fits. Mom specifically wrote that my sister and I are to make medical decisions for her. We know she doesn’t want to be resuscitated if her heart stops, for instance. And Mom also wrote that she wants no feeding tubes.
Our brother says if we follow her instructions we’re no better than axe murderers. He’s threatened doctors and nurses with lawsuits and worse (me too). What do we do?
Cheryl, also in Texas
Dear Cheryl,
As one licensed social worker often tells me, “The person most anguished and irrational about Mom’s dying? The relative from out of town! He’s the guy who says, ‘I don’t care what the Advance Directive says, I want Mom saved!’”
In other words, there’s a lot of guilt attached to your brother’s insistence on save-Mom-at-all-cost. The good news? Her wishes are in writing, and she made you and your sister (not your brother) her attorneys-in-fact. Meaning, she trusted both her daughters to follow her specific instructions.
The bad news is your brother’s assortment of threats. Doctors and nurses threatened with lawsuits by hysterical relatives cannot always be trusted to carry out a dying person’s wishes.
I don’t know quite what you mean by a threat “worse” than a lawsuit. But if in fact your brother is suggesting he might consider carrying out an act of violence against either you or medical personnel, then something can and must be done.
From what you tell me, your brother is a convicted felon. I know you are experiencing a lot of anguish, but if he is a violent guy who is threatening more of the same, then Texas authorities might be interested in helping to move him back to his former place of residence.
Thank you for writing
Judy
