Archive for year: 2015
End of Life Care
Before nursing school I never considered the death of my parents, a loved one, or even myself. Three years removed from that, I am now a lot more knowledgeable on the subject and have a new perspective on the issue. My wishes regarding end of life are as follows: I wish to donate all viable organs, if I have an extremely poor prognosis I don’t want to remain on a ventilator or any other life prolonging measures, and lastly, I would name my sister my durable power of attorney. Although I personally have not had these discussions with my family or peers, I do want to eventually have them. I believe that the best time to hold these talks would be this summer since my entire family will be together.
My parents rarely bring up the topic of end of life because I believe Hispanics rarely have these discussions. I am not sure if it is a cultural issue but I don’t know of any family member that has ever had a living will or appointed a durable power of attorney. When my parents have brought the issue up it is because a coworker or family friend has suffered the death of the family member. Their discussions are usually very brief and they talk about how they don’t want to be in a vegetative state. I plan to have a more formal talk with both of my parents at a more appropriate time. My hope is to have a definite pulse on what my parents’ wishes are regarding end of life issues.
End of Life Care
Death is evident, it can occur to any one at any time. It is important to have a clear understanding of end of life care and what your desires are for when that day approaches. Would you like to be intubated? In a vegetative state? Would you like to be resuscitated or would you prefer to pass away without any resuscitation measures? It is important to have an end of life talk with your family members and the important people in your life. Who will be able to make these decisions for you? Will you write a living will? These are important questions that we should consider and discuss with our family, I did so and the following describes my family’s end of life thoughts.
The topic of death is something I have always avoided. I cannot imagine losing my parents, it brings me to tears. My mom has always expressed her desires to me if something tragic or her death was to occur. She wants to be cremated and not have a memorial service. She does not want me to cry, and she wants me to believe that she has passed away to a better life. She will not be suffering and she would be able to look down upon our family. This may be easy for her to say, but hard for me to believe. The thought of losing my mother is something I cannot imagine. My confident, my best friend, the woman who gave birth to me. I just love her so much that the thought of death is unreal, a reason I believe I would never be able to be her power of attorney nor implement her end of life wishes. My father is the same way. He would like to be cremated, and he would like his ashes scattered in the ocean. My father has never been one to talk about death nor show much emotion. I think it would be easier for me to implement his end of life wishes than my mothers. Why, I don’t know.
In regards to myself, if something tragic was to occur and I was still young I would like to be kept alive. If I have children I would like to be kept alive at all costs because my children deserve to grow up with their mother and father. If I was to have a very low chance of survival it would be ideal to let me go. There would be no point in prolonging my families suffering. I know that my mother would do anything in her power to keep me alive; therefore I would not appoint her as my power of attorney. At this moment I am still unsure of my end of life wishes. It is something that I have to put more thought into and I believe once I have a family of my own I will be able to make a better decision.
It is very hard to have a conversation where end of life decisions are discussed. It is not pleasant and sometimes we are in denial. I am guilty because I cannot imagine my parents passing away. I cannot get over the idea of never seeing my parents or sister; my loved ones being taken away without even saying goodbye or letting them know how much I love them. This topic is difficult for everyone but it is an important conversation that we all must have.
Death and Dying
I tend to think about end of life care frequently because of the exposure that I receive when I volunteer at Our Community House of Hope. While I am taking care of the patients on hospice there I can’t help but think how lucky the are to be in such a loving environment when so many other patients die in long-term care facilities or in the hospital, usually with no one around. I take care of the patients like they are my family because it is hard to not think about that person in bed being one of your grandparents, parents, brother, sister, etc.
Recently my grandmother passed away and I can’t help but think about her death and how she did not suffer from any physical ailment until the day she died because her heart gave up. When discussing her death with my family we have all concluded that she died in the best way possible, besides being in a hospital in which my mother will never forgive herself for not taking her back home when she asked her to. One thing that I do think about and it did not cross anyone else’s mind in the family is that she was a DNR and she was still resuscitated in the hospital because my grandfather verbally stated to do anything they could to save her. I often wonder whom I would pick to make my decisions if I were unable. You have to be able to trust that they will do what you wish them to do.
After she passed my family and I had a long conversation about advanced directives and how important they are to have. Neither of my parents have an advance directive and it worries me. I know what they want if there needed to be a decision made but without them having a durable power of attorney I know my siblings would fight me on the issue. I also know that my siblings would not be able to make the decision that my parents would want.
I do believe that culture plays a significant role in death and dying. I believe some cultures deal with death significantly better than Americans. Americans tend to not think about death and seem to grieve for long periods of time. I am an American and I definitely grieved over my grandmother but I believe that death should be a celebration of life. Celebrate the person’s life and reminisce of the person that they were and the lives that they touched. Death is part of the life cycle and even though people are missed it should not be such a sad, horrifying event. I also witness that death is rarely about the person who died but about the family that is left behind.
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“CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap”
“CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap” will premier on April 19, 2015 at the Tribeca Film Festival in NYC. There will be additional showings throughout the week at the festival. Checkout the new trailer: http://www.codedoc.co/
The deficit of female and minority computer science engineers in America is a mounting gender, racial and economic issue. Tech jobs are growing three times faster than our colleges are producing computer science graduates. By 2020, there will be one million unfilled software engineering jobs in the USA. Companies are now faced with a serious pipeline problem when it comes to women. In 1984 the percentage of BS CS degrees going to women had reached 37%. Alarmingly the percentage of BS CS degrees today has dropped to close to 13%. This decline brings with it the return of discrimination issues that I used to think were behind us.
My soil analysis has officially begun!
Who knew it would be so fun to do soil grain size analyses? 
