Handling a Serious Illness Diagnosis
Before you need cremation services offered in Solvay, NY, you may be diagnosed with a serious illness. Perhaps you’d been feeling fatigued or had episodes where you couldn’t keep your balance. Maybe you’d experienced unusual headaches or mysterious body aches. Maybe you didn’t have any symptoms at all and had just gone to your primary care provider for your annual physical.
Whatever led you to see your primary care provider was likely not alarming enough to bring the thought of serious or life-threatening illness to the front of your mind. Now, however, there are some things that you should do moving forward, both medically and legally.
There are some medical questions – and answers – that will drive the legal actions you need to take.
Before you see your doctor for a follow-up appointment, be sure to list the questions you want to have answered. One question you need to ask is if treatment options are available, and, if so, what they are. Be sure to ask about the pros and cons of any available treatments, since side effects and long-term issues may play an important role in what you choose.
If there are no treatments available, then the next question should be about your short-term and long-term prognosis. If you have a terminal illness that can’t be treated, then you should have an honest discussion with your doctor about how long you can expect to live. Most doctors give timeframes, such as three to six months, when they are dealing with terminal illnesses.
However, some terminal illnesses, such as pancreatic cancer, for example, have very short timeframes – days to weeks – because they often don’t have any symptoms and, therefore, are not detected until they are in an advanced stage.
When your doctor gives you a general timeframe, it’s a good idea, from a planning standpoint, to assume you have the least amount of time left to live. This will give you the focus and the motivation to get all your affairs in order as quickly as possible.
Sometimes terminal illnesses have treatments that will prolong life, but will not stop the illness from advancing to death. The tradeoff for treatment is often quality of life, so this is something that you’ll have to consider if you’re thinking about getting treatment for an illness from which you will eventually die.
Another thing that your doctor can help you with, if your illness is terminal and untreatable or the treatments available will not cure the illness, but simply delay death, is support services, such as palliative or hospice care. Both palliative and hospice care agencies have social workers who can help coordinate other services that you and your family may need at home.
Once you’ve been diagnosed with a serious illness, you should also make sure your legal affairs are in order. You should make sure your will or revocable trust has current information. If you don’t have an advance directive that includes a medical power of attorney and a living will, then you need to get one done. If you do have an advance directive, make sure the information is up-to-date.
You should also make sure your family knows your funeral wishes. Be sure to have the discussion with your immediate family as soon as possible. It’s also a good idea to talk with your funeral home about your funeral plans and make sure they have the information they need to make sure your wishes are carried out.
If you’d like to know more about cremation services in Solvay, NY, our compassionate and experienced team at Bagozzi Twins Funeral Home, Inc. is here to help. You can visit us at our funeral home at 2601 Milton Ave., Solvay, NY 13209, or you can call us today at (315) 468-2431.
