Belleville, IL Death Cafe
A write up of Belleville, IL Death Cafe
By maggieboone
Belleville Death Café Reflections from 8/27/2016
Wow, what a great discussion! We truly missed everyone who was unable to make it. We had Mr. Chong Lee and his associates from KBS in San Francisco join us and filmed the whole discussion meeting for his documentary his is making. After the discussion meeting, Mr. Lee interviewed about five participants.
The discussion started with something that Sharon had wanted to cover concerning an incident where a friend of hers with a DNR went from the hospital back to a nursing facility and something happened where the nursing facility did not honor the DNR. Unfortunately, the person died anyway, but he did have to suffer the period between the times of his incident through the resuscitation until he finally died. The question was where exactly was that communication breakdown that resulted in his extended suffering? What can we do to prevent that from happening to our loved one and/or even ourselves?
Sharon also expressed how important it was for health care workers to be educated on end of life care and wishes of the family. Best practice is probably to make sure you have your forms filled out, a copy to your doctor, a copy to the hospital you generally go to, and a copy on your person in case you are out of area. That way, there is no question on what your wishes are in case you are unable to make those decisions yourself.
At a previous meeting, many of the participants were given an opportunity to fill out the DNR/Living Wills as well as Advanced Directives (by the way, there is a difference – come to the next meeting and find out what that is). It is important to note that there are state specific forms – some require notarization and some do not. Illinois does not; however, we did learn that Missouri does require signatures to be notarized.
The meeting tonight included discussion about one of the participants diagnosed with a brain tumor a few weeks ago. She talked about her feelings concerning that, the fears she had if something goes wrong. Her doctor had advised her to make sure she had her DNR/Advanced Directive filled out and any power of attorney for health care (all these forms can be found online so one can print them out and get them copied) she wants followed. It worked out pretty well since Mr. Lee had wanted to film a couple people filling out DNRs/Advanced Directives. Another participant volunteered to fill one out.
There was also a cultural element discussed and even though Mr. Lee and Associates wanted to be silent observers, we did rather put him on the spot with questions about the Korean culture’s views. It appeared as if there is not a discussion of death and the end of life care is generally the responsibility of the eldest son/daughter – whichever the case may be. Some of the information posted on our new “Belleville Death Café” facebook had articles about funeral rites and interviews with two Korean women about end of life/death/funeral/grief.
We did bounce around a lot because one question and the answers given would lead to a question about something else and etc. That is the beauty of not having an agenda and having an open discussion so that one can ask these hard questions. Keep watching for the announcement of September’s meeting on deathcafe.com as well as our new facebook page.