Have you had ‘The chat’ with your children about your future care needs.

fancythat

I am in a bit of an unusual position.

Actually dealing right now with the generation older than my and DH's.
And yet people around us are starting to talk to us about when we ourselves die.

Our accountant last week was talking about this subject. I thought he meant hte older generation. Took me a couple of minutes to cotton on that he was talking about ourselves!

How can we take ourselves death seriously, when nearly all our parents are still quite with us?
Dont think at all I am in the right headspace for that.

I comprehend that entirely. You can't allow yourself to be old, when the other people are really old.

I’ve told dds that I don’t ever want them looking after me. If that eventually means a care home, so be it. 🤞there will be enough funds.
We have set up Ps of A for dds, and have added an extra paragraph to state clearly in which circs. (dementia among others) we absolutely do not want any life-saving or life prolonging treatment.

I have had a talk with my elder daughter, the one who is in the best position to "keep an eye on me". I have told her not to be shy or embarassed if she thinks I am going a bit ga-ga or am in a positon where I won't be able to cope with looking after myself for much longer. She is to tell me and we will put things in motion for a POA and/or a care package before it becomes too late.

Both my kids have a copy of my will and when my husband died I bought a double depth plot so they will have the option to pop me in on top, either in a coffin or as a jar of ashes. I have said I would prefer burial but it will be up to them. When I am dead, I really won't have any preference, after all!

When my dad was in hospital in his final days, I sneaked in (Mum had told me I was not to visit) and found he had a DNR on him. In retrospect he appeared to be on the Liverpool Pathway, as it became known. He had sepsis. He was receiving no treatment. He was so relieved to see me and kept telling me "I don't want to die".

My mother had told the hospital that even if they made him well enough, she was not having him home and they would be stuck with him. He was the age I am now. I had sepsis not so long ago. Thank goodness my daughters did not think like their Grandmother, even though they would be considerably better off if I had popped my clogs. They did everything they could to help me.

Aely, Shocking re the way your father was treated. That must have been very upsetting all round!

No treatment for sepsis indeed!!

Shocking re your mothers attitude too - it does leave a very nasty taste in the mouth when your mother says that about your father (as I know - because that was what happened in my family).

Good on your daughters...they sound like a blessing to you.

Jane43

Allalongagatha

I am a strong believer that everyone should have a health POA whatever their age. Is is easy to do and fairly cheap.

We have just done ours, way overdue but despite being advised to have it done by a professional we did them ourselves, it is quite straightforward and only cost us £82 each although it has now gone up to £92. Family friends paid over £1000 to have theirs done professionally plus the registration fee of £82 each.

We did them both ourselves, too. You do not need to pay a solicitor, but you do need to read the instructions, esp. re signing and dating, very carefully, since any mistakes will mean it’s rejected and you will have to start (and pay!) again.

We found it perfectly straightforward.

Iam64

I’ve had a number of discussions with mine. I hope never to go into a care placement

I have DNR in place. The know I don’t want to be kept alive by tubes and wires.

They know where the will, DNR, household bills, bank, savings are.

We were recently told by the nurse in the heart failure clinic that a DNR only applies to resusitation from a heart episode where a defibrillator or similar is used.

DH was told he needed to sign one because his breast bone has not joined up again after his bypass operation and any sudden pressure on his chest, like defibrillator would kill him. When we expressed concerns because we thought it woulbe appliedin any other event where other methods of resusitation would be used, they said, very firmly No DNR's only applied to the use of defibrillators and methods requiring the use of pressure on the chest.

we had our wills made when we bought the house, and have all of our children named as POA after my OH was diagnosed with Alzheimers. we both want to be buried.I have told them where all the documents and bank accounts are. I look after my OH at home, and I don't want to go into a care home, I just hope I live long enough to look after him.

winterwhite

*Bluebelle*, I once said to the ACs Just leave me alone and let me fall downstairs and break my neck. They said, Don't always put yourself first Mother. Suppose you only break your hips and we have to look after you.

Great discussion there BlueBelle.
During my blue light to A and E admission recently, I heard the paramedic checking with my daughters if I had DNA, if they had power of attorney health and did they know my wishes. Yes, mum doesn’t want to be kept alive if that means wiring her up to keep her alive, she wants us to unplug her.

(If only it could be so straight forward. I was proud of my girls thst day )

Witzend

Jane43

Allalongagatha

I am a strong believer that everyone should have a health POA whatever their age. Is is easy to do and fairly cheap.

We have just done ours, way overdue but despite being advised to have it done by a professional we did them ourselves, it is quite straightforward and only cost us £82 each although it has now gone up to £92. Family friends paid over £1000 to have theirs done professionally plus the registration fee of £82 each.

We did them both ourselves, too. You do not need to pay a solicitor, but you do need to read the instructions, esp. re signing and dating, very carefully, since any mistakes will mean it’s rejected and you will have to start (and pay!) again.

We found it perfectly straightforward.

Yes, there is a checklist provided re signing and recording the dates, as you say the parts have to be signed in date order and I also did a lot of research before doing ours regarding terminology, who can be witnesses etc.

Not being personal but I regard DH and I as being pretty well-off but with carehome fees at upwards of £60k a year each our money wouldn't last long if we both needed care. My Gt Aunt lived to 106 - about 25 years of that in a care home (free of charge!).

Also, if only one of us needs care the other would remain in the house and retain their own liquid assets, so the person in care would be limited to a much cheaper care home - and believe me there are some crap ones around!

I’m divorced and live alone, my ex-husband lives with his (lovely) partner. My house is still owned by us both as joint tenants, his in in his sole name. Neither of us has a will nor POA and approaching 70, I am determined to get mine done after Christmas.

We have three AC: eldest lives closest but is flat-out with her career, child and social life, and deflects any attempts I make to discuss my eventual demise. Middle one lives in Asia with his wife and child, inconvenient when signatures are needed. Youngest lives two hours away, is the most pragmatic and remembers what I’ve told her about my wishes.

I assume all the AC should be executors but the geography must complicate it. I don’t doubt my ex-husband will agree to transferring this house into my sole name, when we divorced he suggested we do it when he’d paid off the mortgage, which is now done, but I don’t know if I need to find a solicitor to process it.

He refuses to contemplate his own demise and the AC know nothing about his business, finance or whether his partner expects to stay in his house if he dies first, and despite my lack of action so far, I really do want to make things easier for them if I can.

Thank you all for the inspiration to start some tricky conversations!

Lots of people saying I will do it after Christmas. Accidents happen without notice.

My daughter and I completed my DH POA on line. But when it came to do mine for all sorts of reasons we didnt have the headspace to do it. So I went through a solicitor. I wish I had not. Expensive, more time consuming than necessary and pretty incompetent and acrually quite a rude arrogant man.
I certainly won't be using him to update my will which is a shame as he is within walking distance which is why I chose him. Big mistake.

Dont leave it too late. You have to be of sound mind and we all know how suddenly that can change at any age. And for any reason. And once it is done, you don't have to think of it again. When DH was in hospital we had more problems than necessary as at that time we didnt have a health POA in place for him.

Everything in place.POA and will. My son knows I do not want to go into a care home, maybe there will be no option but sincerely hope not as I would be a bad patient, being cooped up so will do anything to avoid.

I’m with you Allsorts

My mum told us that if dad died first, she wanted to go into a care home. He died when she was 92. Telling us that made things so much easier. She had a new lease of life for 6 months. She no longer had to worry about shopping or housework or cooking. She had company and social activities including outings. Best decision she made. So glad she told us.
I have had conversations with my children and done POA. You can’t do it all online. You can input certain information then print it off but it all needs witnessing and signing in the write order.

I'm hoping that the Mc Carthy and Stone option of a high level of support but in my own flat will do the job.

You can live either completely independently or buy in cleaners, carers, and meals. Everything until the level of high level nursing care, and I know the local one, its close to familiar things.

I know myself well enough that living here in my house, if I cannot get out I will be far too lonely, and an assisted wheelchair down to the bits and bobs of things like midday meal or afternoon tea or just sitting in the common room that they have in McCarthy and Stone will be better.

I do have to pluck up courage to have "that Conversation" with DS and DiL. it's only the fact that DGD is so very disabled and will need 24/7 care gets in the way.

You see, they don't talk about the future with her, its important for them to cope by living in the present, not supposing stuff like, how long will she live etc.

Advice?

Allalongagatha

Lots of people saying I will do it after Christmas. Accidents happen without notice.

Exactly! The poster saying she will do a PoA when her daughter tells her she is going gaga is ridiculous. If she has gone gaga, it will be too late, she won’t be able to sign the PoA.

One of the things that we have done is to have a list of all of our accounts, pensions and shares etc with account numbers, passwords and contact details to make it easier for our son, but also me should anything happen to my DH.

Also, how many people inform their next of kin of their travel insurer when they go abroad? Repatriation costs are high but unless someone knows who your insurers are the cost will likely have to be paid up front by a family member.

I despair at the number of people who leave all the “ life admin” to their spouse or adult children ( unless they have dementia ) and then haven’t a clue if their spouse dies first. When I worked in an advice centre I had one lady come with a huge bag of bank statements, bills etc. wanting help with the tax situation after her husband died. It took me the whole hour just to sort the paperwork into date order. She hadn’t a clue.
Of course in some cases it is a case of the other person wanting control.

No, I haven't had 'The Chat' with my children on anything. We have never had subjects we did not talk about so these subjects get mentioned like most things when something happens to trigger them. usually a few senences and then that leads into a different conversation.

We appointed POAs about 30 years ago, as soon as our children were of age and have had wills, revised several times, since just after they were born.

I am not sure I would want to stay in my own home if I was widowed and housebound. It must be very lonely. I would prefer to be in a care home with all the facilities it can offer, and background company.

Family and other commitments mean I have been in and out of a lot of care homes as responsible relative or friend and I know good and bad ones, when I see them and I have told my children what, for me, are the key features. I am in the fortunate position, where I can afford to pay for good care for some time.

Yes cabbie21 I think the control thing is a reason in a lot of cases where the wife knows nothing of the life admin.stuff and often the husband hasn't coped with it all anyway that well. Hopefully younger couples don't fall into that trap.
DH is past coping with anything now so it is on my shoulders but I do keep my DDs updated. I have let them know the names of the 2 banks we bank with where current and savings accounts, ISAs etc are held and the approx amount of money held there. I am reluctant to write down numbers and passwords. They would be able to access all by appoitment at the banks as they have POA for both of us.

Allalongagatha

Lots of people saying I will do it after Christmas. Accidents happen without notice.

I was thinking "Whoops...potential for trouble there" when I read about "doing it after Christmas" and thinking "NO - do it now....you never know".

I can understand that some peoples wills are more complicated than others. My own is incredibly straightforward - it could be summed-up in one line of "I leave absolutely everything to X". That's it = job done. Whereas some people will be going into "This percentage to this and that percentage to that" and there will be some very complicated wills around. But I would imagine most peoples are a fairly basic one of "50% to this child and 50% to the other child". So bar someone being wealthy and with all sorts of trusts and things going on = it doesn't take very long to do the "ordinary person in the street" type will.

In the case of someone on their own with a will as extremely basic as mine even - I thought for a moment this morning "Not another illness Dear Body - don't you dare - or I might consider that one illness too many to be fighting to get rid of". Yep...I give my body big talkings-to about what I would not put up with...warning it to 'behave or else'. One day I could have to decide I wasn't going to be alive the following day - but at least my will has already been done and so that's sorted. So how does anyone know if they'll still be here at the end of the day - we just presume we will. None of us knows.

Twiglet - I presume AC means "actual children"???? No they don't all have to be executors - as I know personally. In the event my parents just made my brother and his wife executors and I was deemed to be "nothing" in my mothers eyes and my father went along with it. That's why I had to fight to be the one to choose our fathers nursing home (they were not going to choose the best one there was - they planned on choosing one right by a main road only 5 minutes walk from our parents home). If they had chosen the home they wanted and knowing that our mother was refusing pointblank to even visit our father - I know exactly what would have happened and he would have set out to cross that very busy road to walk back to their home to see her and there was some unsafe steps inside the place too. I then had another fight with them at each parents death - so that I could see the death certificate and ensure it was accurate (I was very well aware that lots of people had it down on their death certificates in 2020 onwards that they'd died of Covid - when they hadnt at all and had died of their own illnesses they had anyway). So I needed to check and I figure all the officials etc involved had probably got me summed-up well enough that they wouldnt do that (ie "This one isn't daft - and she's a fighter") - and they didnt. They only put my parents own illnesses I knew very well they had on those death certificates - so at least that wasnt an issue - but I needed to check for myself and wasnt going to take anyone's word for it.

So yep I had to have two fights basically with them - because I wasn't down as an executor - and I am still extremely suspicious at such an absolutely exact round figure of money that was what came to me....to an absolute exact number of pounds (no odd pennies) and at such a very very round figure all round and I would have liked to see the paperwork calculations of how come it came to such a suspiciously round figure (and how come some of my mothers jewellery was missing - though it was all left to me - even though the next thing I did after seeing that unfair will was to give what jewellery there was away/didnt even sell it). Little thought there - it would probably have been wise for that jewellery to be listed - so it can be checked that no daughter-in-law or carer has walked off with it - as someone certainly had in my case.

You just never know....

So - on the phone to that solicitor today! A will can be done extremely quickly - my mother had taken literally hours to tell my father their will was going to be changed/phoned their solicitor/been down and seen the solicitor and had that done within 24 hours when I told them I was going to have to move to Wales. So they can be done extremely quickly.

AFAIK a DNR only covers resuscitation when the heart has stopped.

What we added to our H&W Ps of A goes like this:

‘If I should develop dementia, or any other condition where I am unable both to care for myself, and speak, with full mental capacity for myself, then I do not want any life-saving or life-prolonging treatment. I ask for palliative care only.’

Another reason to get a will done NOW being in case of dementia. You do not want a situation where one of your children knows you changed your will after you'd got dementia! Yep my mothers doctor and I agreed she had it. But it hadnt been officially diagnosed - and so it was a "will changed after dementia had struck". But it held - because there hadn't been that official diagnosis.

You want to make that will NOW - while you and everyone else is quite clear your mind is fully functional - rather than afterwards (ie when it might not be).

Also a prolonged session under general anaesthetic (eg a heart bypass operation) can have a very quick effect on the mind. I still swear my father went into his (NHS) heart bypass operation - ie hours under general anaesthetic - with his full normal (very nearly Mensa level) mind and came out hours later with average intelligence/start of vascular dementia. Hours under general anaesthetic can have an effect on the mind - and one never knows if a heart attack is looming quietly.