A Podcast for Those who crave deeper conversations about Money and Life in the new roaring 20s.

Show Notes

The Art Of Dying Well | 26

Episode Recorded On: August 2, 2021

Take control of your own decisions around health & aging, while you still can. This episode is for everyone, at every age… and is actually less about the exact moment of death and more about enjoying the best quality of life possible in the years and years leading up to it.

Must Read: The Art Of Dying Well by Katy Butler

Must Do: Here’s a Medical Care & End Of Life Workbook with all of the questions we’re asking ourselves and forms we’re filling out for ourselves and our family members.

Links From Episode:

Full Transcript

Becca:
[0:02] Welcome to Vaginance. This episode we are tackling the perhaps morbid but extremely important subject of death and end of life care and how to prepare for your own impending doom or for the people you love.

Taylor:
[0:18] So casual.

Jewels:
[0:21] Impending doom.

Maggie:
[2:32] Say it with your metal voice.

Becca:
[0:23] Um, yeah, it’s important stuff and people don’t like to think about it. We read a book called The Art of Dying Well, by Katie Butler, and we would definitely encourage all of our listeners to take a listen or read that. We think it’s a really helpful resource for this. Anyways. That’s what we’re discussing today. I’m Becca.

Taylor:
[0:45] I’m Taylor.

Maggie:
[2:32] I’m Maggie.

Jewels:
[0:21] I’m Jewels.

Becca:
[0:50] And we’re so glad ya’ll are here.

Taylor:
[0:45] But won’t be forever.

Jewels:
[0:55] You’re so glad you’re here for now. Before we jump into today’s episode, we want to give a quick shout out to the badass ladies behind the crime scenes podcast. If you love movies and true crime, you’ve got to check them out. And now back to our regulary scheduled programming. Today, we’re talking about a book, The Art of Dying Well by Katie Butler.

Becca:
[2:20] But you had another financial thing that you did this week that was pretty topical, wasn’t it?

Jewels:
[2:25] What, what happened? Someone help me? Oh, we got life insurance.

Becca:
[2:27] That’s big.

Jewels:
[2:31] It was a big weekend.

Maggie:
[2:32] Hey, you know, I learned something about life insurance uh, in the past couple weeks that you would think, well, you think that I would have known, but I didn’t. Well, if you admit to participating in clinical trials.

Becca:
[2:44] Holy shit.

Jewels:
[3:02] Or like if you die doing a clinical trial, that’s probably not a legitimate death against the policy terms.

Maggie:
[2:56] Well, also because the side effects and long term side effects are unknown. And so life insurance companies won’t take a risk on you because they’re like, you took experimental drugs. We don’t know what that means for the rest of your life. So yeah, I’m excited to know that you got insurance because you can explain it to us now.

Jewels:
[3:02] Yeah, life insurance. Pretty excited about it.

Taylor:
[3:17] Yeah. So what was your what was your primary reason for getting it? Like what was the motivation?

Jewels:
[3:19] Zach and I do a lot of really stupid high risk stuff. Like our chance of dying in a year is probably 10 x most people,
like just going snowboarding once in a place like tree wells. Right.

Taylor:
[3:34] After I found out about those fucking tree wells, I’m never going snowboarding or skiing ever, ever again, because it’s the most horrifying thing I’ve ever heard of.

Becca:
[3:41] What is it?

Jewels:
[3:44] It’s the best. Um okay, so a tree, well is something that forms like when you have a big, coniferous tree, like on the mountain and the snow falls, the snow sort of falls and builds up around the tree, but it leaves this empty space under it. Where the tree is sort of protected. So it kind of makes a well and around like it can be really deep, like 10ft because you have like so much snow. And if you like skiing in the trees, which we do, you have to be really careful not to get too close to trees that might have a tree well and you might not be able to see it because what happens is often times people fall in headfirst and then the snow falls in on top of them and you cannot get out. It’s not that you get crushed, but like you’re literally suspended upside down and you suffocate. Yeah, it’s not not good.

Taylor:
[4:41] That’s just one thing that can happen to you while you’re skiing and it’s horrifying.

Maggie:
[4:45] I have no interest in snow sports.

Taylor:
[4:41] Me neither. I will be in the hot tub at the bar waiting for your ass.

Maggie:
[4:45] Me, Taylor and Becca would be drunk waiting for you.

Taylor:
[4:56] Oh, I’m gonna be wearing my slippies by the fireplace fucking sipping hot cocoa.

Becca:
[5:03] Listening to like romance novels on audiobook for all of us to listen to.

Taylor:
[5:05] That sounds ideal.

Jewels:
[5:11] Well I love snowboarding. So I will snowboard and then I will meet you for apres ski.

Taylor:
[5:05] Unless you fall in a tree well and we have to go and find your ass.

Maggie:
[4:45] Put me as a beneficiary.

Taylor:
[5:05] Yeah that’s what I said, I already called dibs.

Jewels:
[5:11] That’s a whole other discussion we need to have. So between like snowboarding, scubadiving, flying small airplanes. Like we do all sorts of things that are high risk as far as, you know – what are those tables called? Starts with an A.

Becca:
[5:40] Oh, actuary.

Jewels:
[5:41] Yeah actuarial tables.

Taylor:
[5:42] Wait, so did you admit all this? Did you have to take like a questionnaire on your life insurance of like what are activities you do and like someone had to assess your risk value?

Jewels:
[5:54] Yeah. I put in all the diving stuff. Like whether I’m certified, what depth I dive to, that kind of thing. Do I dive in caves?

Becca:
[6:04] What’s the, what’s the incentive of being honest? Why wouldn’t everyone just say I’ve never smoked? I’ve never drunken?

Maggie:
[6:10] Because if she dies in a caving accident.

Jewels:
[6:18] Yeah. If I die diving in the next year, they ask you like in the last two years or the next year. Have you or do you plan to dive fly small airplanes? Like all of those things?

Maggie:
[6:19] So if she says, I don’t go cave diving, and then she dies cave diving, they’re going to be like, fucking no!

Jewels:
[6:24] I’m planning to go diving again probably in January. So it would behoove me like I want my policy to cover it if possible, and I need to go read… and I need to find out if I need supplemental insurance, like we usually get extra diving insurance when we dive in case you need decompression treatment or anything like that. Um but yeah, so you don’t necessarily want to lie about those things.
If not disclosing it will avoid your policy if you die that way because then it defeats the point.

Becca:
[6:58] Right, okay, got it. That’s a good incentive.

Taylor:
[7:03] So that’s why you wanted to get it is because y’all in general tend to make riskier or more thrilling….

Jewels:
[7:07] Daily life is pretty dangerous for me.

Taylor:
[7:12] Getting in a fucking car is dangerous.

Jewels:
[7:16] Someone got bit at a park by a snake this week here in town.

Becca:
[7:16] Really?

Taylor:
[7:19] And died.

Jewels:
[7:22] Not as far as I know, I haven’t followed up. A copperhead. I don’t know. I didn’t go read about it. Zach was just like two people, bit! I was like, okay, cool.

Becca:
[7:22] Goddammit, I’m fucking done with snakes.

Taylor:
[7:33] I’m never going outside again for the record.

Maggie:
[7:35] I saw a motorcycle accident video on Reddit that I cannot unsee.

Becca:
[7:36] No, no, no, no.

Jewels:
[7:38] Let’s see. Right, we ride motorcycles, all of that. Yeah, no, bad. It’s bad.

Becca:
[7:44] Why would you watch that? No, no.

Maggie:
[7:44] Phil was like should I watch it? I was like, no, don’t do it, don’t do it. Also, you’re never allowed to buy a motorcycle.

Taylor:
[7:51] No, they’re insanely dangerous.

Jewels:
[7:38] And so much fun.

Taylor:
[7:51] I’d rather be miserable and alive.

Jewels:
[8:01] Would you though? That’s a great lead in for tonight’s topic.

Becca:
[8:01] That actually, that is the question.

Jewels:
[8:08] But yeah, so we got like just 10 year term life insurance, million dollar policies for each of us. And not only is our risk of, it’s not that I think either of us is going to die, but it is like a constant fear in the back of my mind that one of us will die and won’t have the financial security to just, do nothing for a year, right? Because I don’t anticipate losing your spouse to be a very pleasant experience.

Taylor:
[8:38] Right. Yeah. Well that’s exciting. So once you buy insurance like you went online, how did you, what was the process of finding life insurance? How did you determine what was legit, what seemed shady? Did you get advice from other people? Like what was your kind of, how did you start addressing?

Jewels:
[8:56] Okay, so we’ve procrastinated for a long time because it’s been on our list since at least early snowboarding season. Like back on top priority on the list, priority took half a year.

Taylor:
[9:01] Any sport that makes you think I should get life insurance is not something I want to be participating in.

Jewels:
[9:10] It’s not necessarily the sport, but it is like knowing how Zach snowboards. Man is crazy. Man does risky step. He follows my father into trees and my father comes out of trees with like his expensive snowboarding jacket like gashed open and stuff. So if Zach, who is not as athletic as my father is willing to try to follow and keep up with him, there’s a good chance Zach will die.

Taylor:
[9:36] Just watching him weave through trees like I need to call the insurance company.

Jewels:
[9:44] Yeah, I mean he’s been doing it doing that same thing for over a decade now, but you know.

Maggie:
[9:58] But you are like insurance for Zach. Yes. Me. When I think of you to getting insurance, you’re the unlucky one. You’re the one that gets bit by snakes, like breaks bones that no one even knew could break.

Jewels:
[10:03] It’s for me. Yeah, exactly.

Taylor:
[10:12] What bones have you broken?

Jewels:
[10:16] Actually none, my bones don’t break. Every, all the soft tissue around them gets destroyed.

Taylor:
[10:19] Oh my God. That sounds terrible.

Jewels:
[10:21] Yeah. Nothing. Nothing brought me more joy during an injury than Maggie’s absolute displeasure when a doctor brought my x ray back on my ankle after she had finally convinced me to go get the x ray. And she took me, and like wheel chaired me in.

Maggie:
[10:40] Her ankle should have broken.

Jewels:
[10:40] The doctor came in and said so sorry, this took a while, I sent it off to another radiologist to review because I didn’t believe that it couldn’t have even like a crack is like, but, no, the bones are fine.

Becca:
[10:58] Wow. Super bones.

Maggie:
[10:59] Yeah, but your ankle is still fucked though.

Jewels:
[11:01] My ankle is so fucked and now the bones in that leg, my ankle are like, the circumference is probably about an inch bigger than the other one because the bones were under so much stress that they have like super calcified.

Becca:
[11:08] Oh my God.

Jewels:
[11:14] Super bones and really fucked soft tissue.

Becca:
[11:20] Interesting.

Maggie:
[11:20] I do appreciate that. That of all people you could listen to though, that you chose to listen to me. I do not take that lightly, so it doesn’t help that you were right. But.

Taylor:
[11:28] Um, Life insurance, aging, bah, bah, bah. Let’s do this episode.

Becca:
[11:30] So this episode we all read a book and it’s called The Art of Dying by Katie Butler.

Taylor:
[11:39] The Art of Dying Well. There is a book called The Art of Dying.

Becca:
[11:45] The Art of Dying Well by Katie Butler. Oh, interesting. Got that.

Taylor:
[11:49] There are lots of books about the art of dying. But this is The Art of Dying Well.

Becca:
[11:53] Yes. The Art of Dying Well by Katie Butler. Um Yeah, we,for months now we’ve kind of been talking casually about wanting to talk about life insurance and end of life care and how to financially prepare yourself and your loved ones, um for your impending doom or there’s, and we’re finally doing it, we’re finally talking about it, and this book was awesome to me, I felt like it should be required reading for all humans.

Taylor:
[12:24] I completely agree. I sent it to like everybody I knew.

Maggie:
[12:28] I’m already a little bit, I don’t know the right word. Sad because sending to both my parents and I guarantee you both of them are not going to read it.

Taylor:
[12:32] Oh, my mom started reading it immediately.

Maggie:
[12:37] I sent it to my mom and she was like, thanks, I’m reading something else right now. And I like told my dad about and he’s like, oh cool, okay, cool. Anyway, the Olympics, Maggie and I was like, read the fucking book.

Taylor:
[12:43] It’s because people don’t want to think about it. People don’t want to think about their inevitable death because all of us are going to die. All of us, every single one of you listening is going to die.

Jewels:
[13:00] But the point of the book is actually less about the moment of death and the potentially years and years leading up to it, in which making your decisions in advance about how you want those years to progress, and how you want people to make decisions if they have to make decisions on your behalf, or even thinking through those decisions yourself before you’re in that like phase of life. Um, and just how much that can make your life better all the way up until the moment of death.

Taylor:
[13:29] It is insane. And I found this book so helpful in giving actual, practical advice on like these are the specific things you can do to prepare for aging and make sure that you are educated on your options and make sure you know or make sure you have a team of people that you trust that can make those decisions for you. If you can’t make them make sure you know what you want. Like really think about how you want the last third. You know assuming you are lucky enough to age you know and die from old age. Like they really think about how you want those years to be because you do have a say a little bit and like how your health progresses and how you can control the narrative around your health and your medical choices.

Maggie:
[14:15] I also, I listened to the audiobook so I don’t think I looked at the physical book but I know she referenced at least some links to having templates for forms as well and I was like yes. Because some of that shit you have to pay lawyers for and so having some templates at least to get started is super cool. It’s a good book, fully support this book. Becca thank you for recommending it.

Taylor:
[14:34] Yeah, thank you for recommending it.

Jewels:
[14:39] Well and the templates, that was my first choice Maggie when you said like, neither of your parents will read it even though you need them to. And I was like, we just need to compile like Workbook that’s like here the 10 pages, fill this out, fill this out, we’re going to sit down over coffee and we’re going to fill this out at least a preliminary and then you can go home and you can keep thinking about this.

Maggie:
[14:48] Read these two pages.

Jewels:
[14:58] And if we want to update in six months, let’s get together for coffee.

Maggie:
[15:01] Can we actually do this? Because I’m seeing I’m seeing my mom in a couple weeks and I know she’s not gonna read this fucking book and same with my dad, I would love to do that.

Becca:
[15:07] I would love that.

Taylor:
[15:07] I would love to do that. And I know my mom like as soon as my mom started listening, she was like, like texting like fury texting me being like, just you know, I don’t want this blah blah blah blah. And I was like, that’s great, but you should put it in writing, I can’t like show the doctor a text, you know, from like.

Jewels:
[15:19] From like eight years ago.

Taylor:
[15:28] It was like put it, like listen to the book, get the templates, put it in the like in the templates that she provides. But um yeah, this is a book where as I was listening to it, I, because I also listened to audiobook, I was like already thinking I’m going to re-listen to this multiple times throughout my life and like revisit it and think about it again.

Jewels:
[15:48] Well and the format of the book is broken down in like, are you in this sort of age range? Is this sort of… At the beginning of different chapters, she asked you questions about your health, your ability to walk certain distances easily, all of that so you can kind of figure out, okay, this chapter is for you at this stage of your life or your parents’ life if they’re starting to navigate aging. And then these other chapters, like it sort of, advances through the different phases of decline and then prepares you with what you need to actually have in place for that phase and the decision points you have to face.

Taylor:
[16:22] I thought it was really interesting and something I hadn’t really thought about was she talks a lot about falling and how that’s like one of the biggest things that determines your quality of life is if you can find ways to prevent yourself from falling, it’s you’re more likely to stay out of a nursing home longer, you’re more able, you’re more likely to be will stay in your home longer, you’ll have less health issues. Like so much of the like the beginning of the end starts happening when people start falling.
And I’ve seen that with all of like my grandparents, like people, parents that have died, like it’s when they start falling down and she gives you helpful tips and addresses. Like these are ways you can avoid that. Like you can literally have people come into your home and help you and show you what are ways like to move furniture exactly put handrails in.

Maggie:
[17:14] What furniture you need to move, yeah.

Taylor:
[17:18] Like there are people that specialize in these things that can actually tell you these are the best ways to prevent a fall.

Jewels:
[17:23] Like accessible home design, physical therapy when they start to notice like if your step length decreases quite suddenly, that’s usually like an indication of high fall risk in the next few weeks. So there was another book I’d read a few months ago, I think it’s called the Great Indoors or something. And there was just this one chapter in there that was about um designing like apartment buildings and living facilities for different types of handicaps. So even like autistic adults who um can develop life skills and live on their own but in this community setting. But then some of the ways that they design noise dampening and stuff like that because they some of them be so sensitive to that type of stimuli. And it was also breaking down some really cool research facilities, like a, it was a nursing home that’s attached to a major university that does a lot of research on aging. And so they have, it’s so smart and they have this really collaborative relationship with the people who live there where the people can opt into different studies. And there were some really cool ones about falling where there are some research teams designing um, like the predictive stuff where it can track sort of your step length and then also they took like the wii cameras from the Nintendo Wii system and trained it so that, it’s not just like watching you all the time, but it’s watching your silhouette in a way that it can identify when you fall because the other thing is your risk of dying soon after a fall goes up dramatically. The longer you’re left on the ground after a fall. So getting care to you immediately when you’ve fallen makes a big difference for you recovering and continuing to live well after that. So it’s like not only falling but falling and staying on the ground for hours.

Maggie:
[19:17] Invest in life alert people.

Jewels:
[19:19] Right? And yeah. And so this was something where they had tested it out in this facility and as soon as the system identified someone had fallen, then it immediately lets the care nurse now. So their response time is amazing.

Maggie:
[19:32] Don’t the Apple Watches now have that ability as well?

Jewels:
[19:38] Probably.

Maggie:
[19:39] Yeah. I think I read something that like this guy’s life was saved because he fell and Apple Watch like alerted her as an emerging contact and was like, potential fall.

Jewels:
[19:48] That’s awesome.

Maggie:
[19:50] And it’s like, it can also, because it monitors your heart rate it can be like potential heart attack or you know like, dire dire situation is happening.

Taylor:
[19:50] That’s, that’s probably honestly one of the best things that could come out of like technology innovation and design is like the ability to help like aging communities in ways that we’ve never even thought of before and just quality of life.

Jewels:
[20:10] Exactly. Well and part of what this um was really fascinating in the breakdown of that book was how much more quality of life and independence the people felt like they had. Because someone’s not checking on them every hour to see if they’ve fallen, they’re being notified by just a device. So you can actually live more independently because you have a device that will let someone know if you need them.

Taylor:
[20:32] And you’re taking the burden off of, you know, the people you love worrying about you constantly if they know that there’s something that’s constantly checking in on you. But the other, the third thing I was going to say about falling was medicines, which I never thought about before. How you know, as you get older, you tend to like stack on the medications and if you’re visiting different doctors, they’re not necessarily looking at how all the medications are reacting with each other. And there’s a whole website and I wrote it down. One of y’all might be able to remember. She mentions it in the book. Um, there’s a whole website that’s just dedicated to dangerous medications for elderly people, and when I went on there and it will literally list all the medications and their potential side effects and a lot of them, the reasons why they’re dangerous is it causes dizziness and fogginess and it makes your likelihood of falling increase and so like, her whole point in the book was make sure you’re paying attention. You can visit specialists that will look at all of your medications, bring a list of your medications or bring them all in a bag, and they will sit down and go through every single one of them with you and make sure that none of them are going to cause brain fog dizziness or anything that’s going to make you more likely to fall. Or any other kind of potential dangerous situations like dementia and Alzheimer’s.

Maggie:
[21:55] On that note, I was going to say, I think pharmacists in our society and in the world in general are extremely underutilized because they are doctors and that is their job is to make sure that the drugs you are taking do not adversely interact with each other. But so many people will get drugs filled at different times, right? Like one doctor prescribes this, they go pick it up this month, two months later they go and like you can’t expect the pharmacist to memorize you know hundreds of people or they’ll get them filled at different pharmacies or they’ll get like, one pain pill here, one pain pill, they’re like ship like that, but if you have one pharmacist you can ask them, that’s their job. Like you can go, hey I’m taking these drugs, like am I overdosing, like am I taking too much pain medication, am I taking something that will adversely react with this other drug? That’s what pharmacists do and like nobody uses them for that at least to their full potential.

Becca:
[22:47] I certainly have never thought to actually use a pharmacist for their knowledge.

Maggie:
[22:49] Yeah, you can ask them questions. Like they probably would love to answer some questions and do something different with their day, right?

Becca:
[22:51] Well in, on that same chapter I think when she was talking about that um about dangerous side effects are not she kind of starts the chapter off telling these basically horror stories of like you know, we’ll say whatever, Lisa is taking drug A for her blood pressure and that causes drowsiness. So then yeah, yeah causes insomnia and so then she has to take drugs to help her sleep and that causes brain fog and then now they think she’s got on early onset dementia. So they’ve got her on a different drug. And it’s just like if you’re, you need, what was the term for the doctor who does like geriatric doctor list when I wrote it down?

Jewels:
[23:41] Some sort of geriatric specialist.

Taylor:
[23:45] I couldn’t remember I wrote it down but I have to find it.

Becca:
[23:47] But yeah where they look at the whole person and all of the drugs they take and like okay well this is probably what’s causing this and this and this and this.

Taylor:
[23:54] It’s amazing. And you can probably eliminate you know half of those drugs or medicines.

Jewels:
[23:54] And then it’s also like a longer-term relationship where that geriatric specialist helps wean you off over the course of 6 to 12 months down to your actual essential medications and then gives you advice on other things you could do to deal with some of the symptoms that aren’t aren’t medical.

Taylor:
[24:14] Yeah.

Jewels:
[24:16] So if you’re, if you have to be on the high blood pressure medication but that’s causing insomnia. They work with you on other ways to treat insomnia rather than adding another drug cocktail to the mix.

Taylor:
[24:28] Which you know decreases how much money you’re spending on drugs or on medicine and it improves your quality of life if you’re able to eliminate a lot of those unpleasant side effects.

Jewels:
[24:28] And drugs are so expensive. Like the amount of money spent on prescriptions as you age is wild.

Becca:
[24:47] Yeah. And it’s just not something we think about or at least we don’t really have the space maybe in our heads to think about it in the moment, whether it’s you or a loved one who’s taking care of you. Like if you have X thing wrong with you then we just want the doctor to prescribe something that will make it better. And then if you now have a new thing wrong with you, we just want the doctor prescribes something that will make it better. And yeah, like you don’t have the space often times too put together that maybe these drugs are affecting each other or maybe there’s other solutions because all you want is immediate alleviation of those pains or discomfort. So the person you love or yourself. So I think, I don’t know, it was really good for me to hear that kind of broken down and because I feel like even as young people you you know, you notice things start to happen to your body, and you start taking various prescription or over the counter medications and all of a sudden there’s a lot flowing through your blood at any point in time.
And I don’t know, I just really appreciated that.

Taylor:
[25:45] Yeah. I didn’t realize I had mentioned this to you when we were a couple weeks ago.
I didn’t know that a lot of the over the counter pain medications increase your chances of dementia, which is something she talks about in the book.

Maggie:
[26:00] Well, I’m like, ibuprofen and Tylenol are great drugs, obviously. But if you take them every day, they’re gonna cause huge problems for your kidneys and liver. So I think that was a really good point that you brought up, too, is, like, rotate that shit.

Taylor:
[26:05] Yeah. There’s a quote in the book that says Americans are the most medicated people in the world and despite this it has not improved their health or quality of life in significant ways. With a few exceptions, lots of medical issues can be solved by better diet, not drinking and smoking, which is true, right? Like so many of obviously they’re like medicine is wonderful and there’s like,
there are certain things you cannot cure without medicine but it reminds me of Dr. Death actually, because one of, another fantastic podcast outside of ours, one of the patients that they talked to that, this doctor worked on for his back, he had a back issue and instead of just dieting and exercising which would have solved his back problems, like they knew that that would help, he decided to get back surgery because he wanted a quick fix and ended up destroying his back and he can’t walk ever again because I mean the doctor butchered him.

Maggie:
[27:11] It makes me like nauseous inside like, urgh.

Taylor:
[27:12] But yeah. Yeah. But and it makes you think about like the medical industry in general, you know, you you see your doctor is someone that’s trying to fix you or help you, but really you have to think about, they’re not necessarily looking at you as a whole person all the time because they have lots of patients and they have other incentives too. In the book, she talks about how
a lot of doctors and insurance companies are motivated by basically just giving the most expensive fix because through reimbursements and whatnot, like they’re all getting paid out for that. So it doesn’t benefit them to be like just exercise and eat healthy, it benefits them to keep you sick or to give you the most expensive fix.

Maggie:
[27:53] That… I think there’s a whole lot of wrong. Like, I am deeply in rooted in the health industry, especially having a doctor as a mom, I can tell you from life experience, there are good doctors and bad doctors, and there are doctors there to make money and there are doctors there to help people. And there are businesses who employ doctors who are there to make money, and businesses who employ people who are there to help people. And so it’s like, even if you have a good doctor, they could be working for a bad business, right? So there’s so many different things involved. And then, like, people think that doctors know everything and they fucking don’t, like they don’t. And one of the quotes that has always stuck with me, I think I heard it in high school was they call it private practice for a reason. It’s practice. There’s no perfecting of medicine. Like that is not a real thing that ever happens. So, like, when you see a doctor, you have to remember that they’re probably just doing the best they can. And like, you could go do your own research and maybe make some choices for yourself too.

Taylor:
[28:52] And they’ve, well they’ve also found that doctors get worse reviews if they suggest if they sit down with their patients and suggest alternatives to like surgery or really aggressive medical treatment plans. They get worse reviews in general because the patient isn’t seeing either immediate results or don’t think that they’re trying to like urgently fix them. So like doctors are motivated in that way to also go that route because there’s pressure from the family and she talks about that.

Maggie:
[29:22] And doctors get sued too.

Taylor:
[29:24] Or they get sued. So they talk about a lot about that in the book as well as like the pressure from the family to just like the most aggressive, you know, oh my 86 year old mother has terminal cancer. Let’s put her on the most aggressive chemo when really that’s not going to increase her life at all. And it’s going to completely decrease the quality of her life and the doctor knows this but is is getting this pressure from the family and you know, their loved ones to continue it. So they have to like do what, you know, they say or what they want. But it’s really interesting. There’s just there’s a lot of factors involved and like you said, doctors are not involved. Like you have to, they’re humans, like you have to, you know, find one that you trust that you think is has your best interest but also tell them what you want because doctors can’t read your mind and they don’t always know what you want. And sometimes maybe you don’t want that chemo or sometimes maybe you don’t want a certain treatment plan and you’re allowed to tell them no. You’re allowed to say what are my other options. Let’s look at like palliative care was a big thing she talked about, which I don’t even know that term until I read this book.

Maggie:
[30:25] I literally told us to a family member this week. They were complaining about their doctor wanting to order all these tests and blah blah blah like couldn’t afford it. And I was like you do know that you have the right and ability to say no like you don’t want to do that. You could just walk away and never see them again. Like a lot of people think their doctors are like other worldly or godlike and they have to do what the doctors say.

Taylor:
[30:48] Like their boss, it feels like your boss.

Maggie:
[30:53] And it’s like yeah and it’s like I think you should look at it more of a team, like a team thing.

Jewels:
[31:00] Ose them as a consultant where you’re actually asking them questions, poking at the edges, informing them of your priorities in the situation so that they can give you the best possible advice, not the advice most people want. Who don’t realize that they can ask for other options.

Maggie:
[31:16] Yeah exactly. It’s like I would like to know what you learned in medical school that pertains to this and then use that to make my own choices.

Becca:
[31:23] Yeah they did a shout out. She plugged something that we have talked about a lot and that’s like concierge care or direct primary care which me and Taylor both have and both love so much. I feel like I’m constantly singing the praises of my doctor.
Like on Saturday we were out getting drinks and I was like I have a sinus infection, my head hurts, I’m gonna text my doctor and I just text her at like 7pm on a Saturday and she immediately texted back and I was like oh well have you tried this or this?

Taylor:
[31:55] It’s amazing.

Becca:
[31:55] I know.

Maggie:
[31:55] Hell yeah. Another benefit of this podcast.

Becca:
[31:55] Hell yeah. I know. Yeah, huge, huge, huge. I love it.

Taylor:
[32:01] I’ve been meaning to reach out to mine because I want to schedule like a physical, like a yearly, this book has made me want to pay attention to my body more. While I was reading and I was like writing in my to-do list, like, okay, schedule yearly physical, get, get teeth cleaning. Like do all these medical things I should be doing every year. What were some big takeaways you got from this book Becca?

Becca:
[32:31] Really like I loved kind of her over-arching or at least one of her of her over-arching motifs is just like maybe extending life is not necessarily your number one goal. Maybe maintaining a certain quality of life is your goal. Um and I thought that was a really lovely like thought experiment of kind of figuring that out because it’s easy to say for ourselves, but it’s different when it’s someone you love, right? Like it’s easy to say like, oh yeah, once it’s a feeding tube cut me off. But if it’s someone you love who hasn’t told you explicitly what they want, that’s a horrifying idea, you know? So I really appreciated the kind of dive that she did into that whole concept and she really tried to work at like alleviating any guilt that caretakers may feel or people who are ill may feel. And um I thought that was really helpful and beautiful. Um and then yeah, the like sleep aids causing giving you a 50% chance, higher chance of getting dementia that really stuck with me.

Taylor:
[33:39] Like an insane, an insane amount if you’re misusing it, or using it too much.

Becca:
[33:40] That’s bananas. Yeah, I don’t even yeah, I think it’s like if you’re using it regularly or something. Yeah, there was a lot, I really, I really do look forward to reading this again and oh and to actually two other things she talks about towards the beginning – five wishes website that I didn’t confirm still exists, but I assume does. Where, or is it three wishes?

Jewels:
[34:10] I think it was five?

Becca:
[34:11] It was three or five wishes.

Maggie:
[34:14] Now we’re all doubting ourselves, I thought it was three.

Jewels:
[34:10] I have the book, I’ll look it up.

Becca:
[34:26] But if you like, or if your loved one, like doesn’t have them, like there, you’re not ready to go through this in depth. They’re not ready to go through this, like, in depth breakdown of what they want, and they’re like in their aging and their death, then they can just like go to this website and pick three wishes. And they could be like, one of them was like, even if I can’t respond, I wish that someone would hold my hand and talk to me while I’m in intensive care or something.

Jewels:
[34:49] Chapstick. I was like, yes, please. I love Chapstick so much. I mean like, well, I just hate dry lips so much and the feeling of like your breath drying out your lips that I feel like put extra on right before I go to bed so that it doesn’t dry out before I fall asleep. So when I am, if I am dying, someone, please, this is my one wish.

Becca:
[35:12] That’s your wish. Chapstick.

Jewels:
[35:13] Please keep me… I don’t care if you’re like, this is too much. Just go for Vaseline or something that’s going to last. Just coat me. Yes, Yes.

Becca:
[35:18] Just lather it on.

Maggie:
[35:22] Better too much than too little.

Taylor:
[35:24] I’m going to get like lead.

Jewels:
[35:25] I’d rather die from drowning in my Vaseline than die with dry lips.

Becca:
[35:31] Duly noted.

Jewels:
[35:34] So, when she mentioned so, yes, the like hold my hand and talk to me, even if I’m not registering… that whole passage there, all the ideas she had, but some of them were really unexpected for me, like Chapstick.

Becca:
[35:39] Yeah. It was really good. Um, and then at the end she talks about an organization called Pace. Um, which was something like passionate of palliative, whatever, something care for the elderly.

Maggie:
[36:01] Non profit right?

Becca:
[36:04] And it’s, yeah, it’s through Medicaid. I like looked it up.

Taylor:
[36:06] It’s no longer right?

Becca:
[36:11] Um, no, I think it’s still around.

Taylor:
[36:06] Oh, I thought she said it dismantled in 2018.

Becca:
[36:11] Oh, I don’t know. I was looking at the website today and I didn’t see that. It just said to qualify, you have to be over 55 and in a relevant region, but maybe I’m, maybe the website was old.

Taylor:
[36:22] Either way Pace or a program, like there’s, I think there’s other programs similar to it, but that sounded amazing.

Becca:
[36:24] Yeah. It sounded incredible. It also made we really want to like volunteer to hang out with old people.

Taylor:
[36:32] I used to volunteer in New York to play games with old people and it was like one of the funniest things I ever did, because you just go and play board games with old people and like they don’t give a shit, so it’s just like they’re funny.

Maggie:
[36:44] One of the most rewarding things we did in high school with the health occupation classes was every Friday we would drive down to the like medical center and go to the Ronald McDonald House and cook breakfast for everyone there, which was super awesome. You know Ronald Mcdonald House.

Becca:
[36:53] Oh, that’s awesome.

Maggie:
[37:01] So they like do like affordable long term care for people who have family members who are in long term care. So like there it was next door basically to the children’s hospital. So a lot of parents with children going through chemo who can’t afford to spend $200 a night on hotel rooms in downtown Houston to be close to their kid could get an affordable room at the Ronald McDonald House and then like we would go and make them breakfast every Friday. It was very cute.

Jewels:
[37:31] Okay. So it was five wishes but she only listed three in the samples.

Becca:
[37:38] Okay.

Jewels:
[37:38] So the categories that she had were my wish for how comfortable I want to be, which had things like I wish to have warm baths often. I wish to be kept fresh and clean at all times. I want my lips and mouth kept moist to stop dryness. I wish to have religious readings and while of poems read aloud when I’m near death. The second category she had was my wish for how I want people to treat me. That includes like the pictures of loved ones in my room, my hand held and being talked to. I wish to die at home if that can be done. And then the third was my wish for what I want my loved ones to know. Um and that had stuff like I wish we forgiven for the times I’ve hurt my family, friends and others. And if there’s a memorial service for me, I wish for the service to include the following and it had like different music songs, readings or other specific requests which I thought was kind of nice were, like maybe I pick the main flower that I want at my memorial service.

Maggie:
[38:34] I always thought you’d have to include that in your will, but the will is more of a legal document. So this is like a good way to have all the things that you wouldn’t put in your will noted.

Jewels:
[38:38] And I think to like relieve people of guilt and absolved them of some trauma you may have also caused them in life. I think that’s really nice.

Taylor:
[38:50] For sure. And also just like if you think about it, not having these things laid out very clearly puts a massive burden on an already grieving loved one, you know? So like when my dad died, he obviously didn’t have any like anything listed out for what he wanted. So we had to, we had to do everything and we had to think… okay we didn’t even and there’s things we even think about until months later, we’re like oh we didn’t even think about donating his body or like seeing if we should… like that because we were just all so traumatized and trying to figure out what all the steps we don’t even think about that stuff. And if he had a list of like these are the things that I want done, you know, then it would have been very easy to be like okay he wanted to donate his body or he wanted to do these things like check that off, you know? But it really is, I do feel like that is super valuable that you know you kind of touched on as well, getting out of this book is like if nothing else, just, fill out a fucking form, spend 10 minutes tell the ones that are going to be left behind that love you what you want even even if you’re still alive and you can’t make decisions for yourself because you have dementia or some other kind of brain injury, make sure they know at what point you just want to be let go because your loved ones are most likely going to be in shock and they’re going to do everything they can to save you,
including probably very traumatic stuff that’s not going to end up saving you and might even just make your end of life more miserable. Not intentionally, unintentionally trying to save you. So just let them know this is what I’m okay with. This is what I don’t want. Don’t give me intensive surgery if the likelihood of me surviving it is very low and it only extends my life by a week.

Maggie:
[40:40] Which reminded me of two things. One of which was, um, if you are an organ donor, your license might say it, but it’s worthwhile to tell your family as well. Um, because I was having a casual conversation with my dad the other day and I was like, oh yeah, I’m an organ donor. He’s like, good to know.

Taylor:
[40:52] Yeah. I didn’t even think to check my dad’s side.

Maggie:
[41:00] And neither do doctors. It’s just like, you know, that kind of thing. And then the other thing was just a story I was going to say about basically what exactly what you said. It’s like even if you were young, it’s good to have these things in line because accidents happen. Right. And it’s like, like you said, your family is going to do everything they can to save you. And that’s not always necessarily a good thing.

Jewels:
[41:23] If you’re young, you don’t want to be kept in a vegetable state for 30 years, you know? Well I don’t. But, because you’re young when an accident happens.

Taylor:
[41:35] I’m going to put my consciousness to a computer, which is really what I’m hoping for before we die. I’m like, please science.

Maggie:
[41:41] But yeah, I think a lot of times the center of like, I don’t know, middle young adulthood or like, oh, I’ll worry about that later.

Taylor:
[41:47] Right.

Maggie:
[41:49] And so then you just don’t do it. And like I’ve had family members die at young ages and exactly what you’re saying, it’s like no one knew what the fuck to do because no one ever wrote down what he wanted or what they wanted.

Taylor:
[41:54] And then you’re always going to be burdened with the guilt of like, did I make the right decision? Is this what they would have wanted? Did I cause them more pain and suffering? It’s just, that’s a hard thing to put on your loved ones.

Jewels:
[42:14] Totally. I think also with aging parents, it’s really important that they write it down because if there are like I have siblings and I think that we could work together to like come up with plans and treatment and make those tough decisions. But if one of us feels a certain way is the path to take and our parents haven’t written down in writing what they want because they’re just like, oh, this one child of ours we’ve had the conversation with, but if they don’t put it in writing, then, you know, you’re potentially blowing up all of your kids relationships with each other or causing trauma because one of them decided to pull the plug or something, you know.

Taylor:
[42:57] And in the book, she even says, the doctor usually listens to the loudest voice in the room, not the right one. Just the one that’s, yeah.

Jewels:
[43:00] The one who’s most panicked or emotional or hysterical about it and won’t take…

Taylor:
[43:06] Won’t take no for an answer kind of thing yeah.

Maggie:
[43:08] Yeah. I mean that’s exactly my dad’s family, there’s five siblings and the exact same thing happened. My grandma had like a heart issue and it was kind of like, well we can do heart surgery, but like she might not come out of it. But if she does come out of it, she’ll probably live a couple more years. But like it’s really risky and like you guys said, the loudest sibling wins and she had heart surgery and didn’t make it out of it. That’s like, you know, you’re never going to know what the right choice was and there’s no good choice. But if she had written something down, at least that burden would not have fallen on them, right. And then they wouldn’t, all of them feel guilty, right?

Jewels:
[43:48] Yeah. Yeah. I think it just, it can make things much better for you if you’re going through, you know, post accident or late stage aging to have already thought about those things, writing them down. And I think it is just such a gift to your family or anyone else who has to be making those decisions with you or for you, it’s such a gift.

Maggie:
[44:03] I’m a big proponent of making a power of attorney, someone who is not a direct family member as well because they’re going to be more rational in some of those choices, which I have it on my to do list to make my power of attorney and I just haven’t done it yet. But this book definitely inspired me. I went into all my accounts and um, updated on my beneficiaries. So, you know, started that. You can even make beneficiaries and regular checking accounts.

Taylor:
[44:35] I was just gonna ask can I just go into my like my Schwab account and have beneficiaries in there?

Maggie:
[44:39] Yeah. Yeah. If you like, there’s a little search tool and you just hype beneficiary in and it will like link you to where you need to go.

Taylor:
[44:48] Oh my God, I’m definitely going to do that.

Maggie:
[44:50] Soven if you have like $100, you can make a beneficiary for that.

Taylor:
[44:52] I’m gonna write that down right now, make beneficiary.

Becca:
[44:54] That’s awesome. Another thing that, well, we actually texted a little bit about this maybe a week or two ago because it’s something that I see that keeps cropping up in these books. And I think the first one was in Your Money or Your Life where she talks about how expensive it is to be lonely. Um not alone, not single but lonely. And she insists on the importance of community even more so than partnerships. She really talked about how if you have community, you have someone to watch your dog when you leave town, you have someone to help you with lawn work and then, and how that really saves you money in the long run because then you also get to kind of pay it forward to your friends. But and then that really extended into this book because that came up over and over again about how if you have people in your life who love you or know you or, like they know when to, when you’re acting different or when you look different, they want to be there to bring you meals if you can’t cook for yourself. They want to help support you. Um and I just I don’t know, I love that any any reminder of the importance of community I think is so important because I think especially now it’s really easy to forget that because you feel like you can do everything on your own. Um and you can maybe but not forever.

Maggie:
[46:12] It’s very easy and I think we kind of touched on it before we started recording, it’s just very easy to isolate now.

Becca:
[46:19] Good or bad. Like for some situation is good to be like, I don’t want to be a part of this thing that I didn’t feel comfortable at. Have an excuse, but you can also go in the other direction and be like, I haven’t seen my friends in months, right.

Becca:
[46:26] Yeah, totally.

Taylor:
[46:32] Well I, I feel like I, you know when I was reading the book and thinking about that, what I really spoke to me was when she was talking about how to find different people to do different things for you. So instead of putting all the burden on one caretaker harvesting, you know your community harvesting, what is the word I’m looking for harnessing, harnessing, harvest the community, yeah.

Maggie:
[47:02] We made that real creepy.

Taylor:
[47:04] Harness your community and kind of spread out the work, so okay, you know, have like, you know, your daughter son or whatever, sit down with you and look at the schedule and say okay who can make, who can take me out to lunch on Mondays or every other Monday, who can do my laundry once a week, who can come by and help me bathe once every two weeks, you know, who can we pay to do these things, who can take me grocery shopping kind of like, spread out that burden amongst a lot of people and that’s something that really stuck with me because I thought about that a lot with my dad and how the last, you know, six months of his life, he put all of that on me, in like the amount of guilt I felt when I couldn’t be there every single day you know, and thinking back, it was like really unfair for him to do that but also just like made me feel so much guilt anytime I couldn’t be there and how much easier it would have been if I had had his friends, like also being like okay, he’s clearly ill let me take on like you know, taking him out to dinner once a week or something. But he’s completely, because he had isolated a lot of his friends. Honestly, it was completely on me to do all of that every day. He was texting me, where are you, when are you coming back? And I had to clean up after him and make sure he was paying his bills and make sure he was eating and doing all these things which I was not prepared for doing when I was also in the middle of school trying to go back to school for a new career change and starting a new relationship and all these other life things that were happening to me as I was 30 years old.

Maggie:
[48:34] And obviously that’s not how you want to spend the last moments.

Taylor:
[48:36] No, if I had known like it would have been so much nicer to just like have I would have even happily paid for someone to come in and help take care of him, you know? And then just got to take him out to dinner and like had, you know.

Maggie:
[48:49] Yeah, spend some nice moments together.

Taylor:
[48:51] Yeah, instead I was just stressed like honestly the biggest regret is not just getting to sit down and talk to him,
because I was so stressed about like dealing with the semantics of all of it and trying to figure out is he fed as he clothes, like I didn’t even just get to spend time with him which you know, that could be a huge benefit, you know, if you have a family member or someone that you love or care about that is not able to take care of themselves. Maybe it’s worth that extra money to pay someone to take care of them and help them with those chores. And then you just carve out a little time to actually get to spend quality time with them and talk to them instead of just worrying about, you know, cooking for them or doing laundry. Um getting to sit and talk with them, you’re gonna want that especially when they’re gone. You’re gonna miss that more than anything else. I think.

Becca:
[49:36] Mhm. Yeah.

Taylor:
[49:39] Yeah, sometimes it’s worth the money to you know, get that time back, like paying tolls.

Maggie:
[49:43] Well and I can’t remember the exact numbers because I’ve blocked them out of my memory. But I know that if you’re, if you’re qualified as like unable to work then you get a certain amount for disability and you can get a certain amount of like someone to come in and help you for certain hours a week. And it’s definitely not like the amount of hours you need care, it’s just like but it’s enough to relieve a family member for a day so that they can go do their fucking laundry.

Taylor:
[50:07] Right. But it’s something. And we should have done that. If I had known that I would have looked into it. I had no idea, because I knew he was getting, um he was getting paid monthly the Medicare or whatever because he couldn’t work.

Maggie:
[50:13] Yeah I want to say it’s like 20 hours a week or something like that.

Taylor:
[50:22] Yeah, if I had known that 100% would have done that.

Maggie:
[50:26] Which is enough for you to like have some time to yourself to go take care of the things because you still have a life, you still have laundry, you still need groceries, you need to get taken care of and all that stuff and like you said you had a relationship and, friends and other things you need to do.

Jewels:
[50:42] That was something else she highlighted was, you know, if you reach advanced age and you have done well financially and you might need pretty constant one on one care, but if you have money to be able to take care of things in your caretakers life for them.
So if you have a family member who is spending all of their time taking care of you, but you can hire someone to help with their laundry and cleaning back at their house. So that all of their sort of life stuff is taken care of.
It takes a lot of the load and stress off of them as well, which is a great reason to be financially, you know, set yeah, don’t worry feeling.

Taylor:
[51:17] Yeah. Independent. And you don’t have to worry about feeling guilty about it either.
I feel guilty when other people are taking care of me. I can’t I can’t imagine how other people must feel when they’re, you know, when they have to lean heavily on, you know, their Children or non paid, you know, labor.

Jewels:
[51:23] Here I can other people must feel right when they really right well.
And she also talked about, yeah, she even talked about paying like if you have one of your Children who is spending most of their time taking care of you and actually being up front with your other Children that you know, you are going to pay,
your caretaking child for the time they’re spending with you or you’re allocating a certain you know, bonus out of the inheritance or something because they’re literally sacrificing their ability to work and make money and do other things in their life, they’re working a job.

Taylor:
[52:01] A lot of work Yeah.

Jewels:
[52:04] But being up front with the other siblings and stuff too. So that at the end of the day, everyone is, you know, on the same page.

Maggie:
[52:12] I think maybe, I don’t know, I don’t think it’s so much. I think in our generation, but definitely in our parents generation, I hear a lot of older people say like, oh, the reason I had kids is so someone would look after me when I’m older and I,
I cannot express how much I do not like that.
Like it upsets me so much because I’m like, you brought a whole person in this world to look after you and your old.
That’s the only reason, which I realize is just like a off the cuff thing that people say, But it still upsets me so much every time I hear it, that it just, and then also, even in our generation, some people will say like,
oh, who’s going to take care of you when you’re older if you don’t have kids,
it’s like, right, exactly.

Becca:
[52:55] Goddamn Friend!

Taylor:
[52:56] Hey, someone for their goddamn labor. Yes, that is why a lot of people have Children because they want someone to take to be there when they’re older, take care of them.

Maggie:
[52:57] It upsets me so much. I’m like, is that why you’re having kids? Like don’t put that on them? That sucks when it sucks to put that on somebody.

Jewels:
[53:07] It’s a bad gamble.

Taylor:
[53:07] It’s a bad gamble. People are a bad gamble. It does, it really does.
And I get the sentiment too because it’s like you put so much work into raising someone and you want them to be there for you when you’re old and I understand that, but first of all, a child doesn’t ask for you to have them and raise them.
You were willingly putting that burden on yourself and then you’re expecting them and then you’re putting the burden on them and expecting them to take care of you,
when they’re probably at an age where they have young Children because,
most people are having kids in their twenties and thirties, so you’re going to be in your seventies when probably when you start to have issues seventies, eighties, your kids are going to be in there forties and fifties, right?

[53:54] So they’re going to probably have Children that they’re trying to take care of or maybe pay for college, they have fucking lives and now you’re going to put it on them to drop everything.
Probably the woman because it’s always the daughter too, move to whatever else to come and take care of you, which obviously they’re going to willingly do most of the time because there you’re sucking kids and they love you, but it’s funked up to expect it.
And also fucking have money so you can pay for a goddamn person to actually do it because all these fucking millennials were all up here complaining about unpaid labor, which is fair because they don’t,
pay us enough, but then you shouldn’t win your older expect people to do ship for free because you will.
We all have this mentality of people should get sucking, pay with their own and we need to hold on to that mentality when we’re older, even if we have Children because they need to be paid with their own and people taking care of your old ass need to be paid what they’re owed.
So just fucking have money to pay people to take care of you.

Jewels:
[54:51] Well then, Maker, any aging people who are banking on millennial generation Children to be able financially to take the time off to take care of them,
are probably in for a very bad wake up call because even if you want to take time off to take care of someone in that stage of life, some people financially, in our generation, there’s no,
way they could do it period.

Maggie:
[55:19] Yeah, so this is a morbid question and I don’t know the answer.
It’s sort of hypothetical, but what happens when you’re 70 year old parents says I expect you to take care of me, you’re a millennial, you know, barely scraping by yourself and you literally can’t.
Then what do they go into, like, are they homeless? Go into a nursing home?

Becca:
[55:39] They go into a nursing home paid for by Medicare.

Taylor:
[55:41] Yeah. So yeah, so that I did appreciate in the book, she does offer different options based off of your income or your financial, you know ability.

Maggie:
[55:41] Yeah, and it’s just shitty, it’s just a shitty time.

Taylor:
[55:54] So she does offer a lot of um different things you can consider that. You know, if you don’t have money, you could go into like a state or government finance program.
But again, it’s not gonna be as good as a private one.
You’re not going to be on a fucking mountain looking at the goddamn forest when you die, you’re going to be off of fucking I 35.
Looking at some like crazy person chipping in a bucket. Like just that’s gonna be your last moments on earth.
So fucking invest your money in the goddamn stock market.

Maggie:
[56:35] Index funds people.

Becca:
[56:36] And the expense Seriously, That’s a good takeaway.

Taylor:
[56:39] You have to think about this. You’re gonna die one day, right? We’re all going to die. Where do you want to die?
Do you want to die in your lovely giant home surrounded by people you love in the fucking sun streaming in and there’s birds and shit singing or do you want to die in a shitty old,
scary I see you with people, he’s screaming at you,
uh like you and of course you don’t have total control over it.
But you do have there are ways you can set yourself up for success and like the probability of you getting to die at home or getting to have a peaceful death are increased when you have money and when your plans plans plans.

Maggie:
[57:17] Well and When You Have Plans.

Becca:
[57:18] Plans.

Taylor:
[57:20] Yes true because you can have a lot of money and then you don’t plan for this ship and you end up like in a painful surgery that you don’t ever come out of. But,
it is really interesting to think about because it’s like something, so it reminds me of that episode of explain that I watched that.
It was like part of the money season that we were all watching.
And they talk about how they they’ve done these studies where they put um young people in a, like one of those uh brain scanning machines and they show them images that have been altered of their future selves,
to make them look very old.
And they ask them questions about that person and like they know it’s them and they have to talk about their future selves and they have shown that people uh in there in your brain when you’re looking at a picture of your future self.
It is the same thing as looking at a picture of a stranger and so you completely disassociate yourself from your future self.
You don’t think about yourself as an older person and what that person needs, you care about as much as your older self as you do a complete stranger, like in your that is mind blowing to me.

Maggie:
[58:32] Yeah, that’s a super cool study.

Taylor:
[58:32] Yeah, it was crazy because like, and and that’s just the point of that was like,
it makes complete sense why we don’t plan for the future is financially because we don’t think of ourselves as that person in the future, that’s not us, that’s somebody else.

Jewels:
[58:50] Oh she has a section there where she talks about test driving carless Nous, so before the point at which you might need to sacrifice your license because of reaction time or visual impairment or,
you know any other reason you might no longer want to drive,
before that point actually comes.
It’s very helpful to test out how you, how you’re like life functions in your week looks without a car while you still have the ability to drive.
So they talked about like obviously the car sharing Uber lift,
they mentioned a really cool service that was like go go grandpa or something, which is a way if you don’t have a smartphone,
that you can use to hail a ride sharing service, you can use your old school phone to call, go go grandpa and they’ll connect you with an Uber or lift, which is really cool.

Becca:
[59:42] Oh!

Jewels:
[59:46] Um and then also setting up things like grocery delivery, like all the things you would normally use a car for which I think we’ve had a lot of practice with this last year in quarantine when it’s like okay you don’t have access to go out to these places or to go into these places.
So a lot of us have sort of test driven and set up those things or helped parents do that.
But I do think like six months before you might be giving up your license, it’s a really good idea to start practicing.

Maggie:
[1:00:11] I teach both my parents how to use Uber Yeah.

Taylor:
[1:00:14] You’re doing your part. Uh huh. Yeah. Thank you Miranda.

Maggie:
[1:00:16] I’m not sure that they fully understood it still, but I did give him a run down there like wow!

Taylor:
[1:00:22] See now my mom just complains about how Uber is too expensive now that she like, we taught her how to use it and she was like loving it and using all time.
But now she’s like Uber super expensive. Come pick me up, Fine, she has a bike.

Becca:
[1:00:42] One thing uh that also kind of got my interest during this book.
So like almost, oh my God, almost 10 years ago I trained to be a labor and postpartum doula.
Because I really liked the idea of like being a calm presence in a hectic event.
And there’s a such thing as a death doula um where you are with someone who maybe doesn’t have someone else to be by them by their side or if they just need additional support to help keep the room calm,
and I really want to do it now.

Taylor:
[1:01:15] That sounds amazing. That sounds like a great, like horror film to death Doula.

Becca:
[1:01:16] Yeah.

Maggie:
[1:01:18] When I see my fi energy when I picture myself in that situation, it’s just me bawling.

Becca:
[1:01:19] Okay. Buy beads off the inner, she’s like a jeep.

Jewels:
[1:01:21] Feeds off the energy of the dying so.

Taylor:
[1:01:23] She’s like a demon that sucks the souls out for myself in that situation. It’s just me bawling. Do you like thanks.

Becca:
[1:01:26] Picture myself in that situation. It’s just me bawling. Do you like thanks.

Maggie:
[1:01:29] Do you like think that your you will see yourself more as a helpful present so that you can kind of separate, like the emotions and like be that helpful person?

Taylor:
[1:01:32] You’re, you see yourself more as a helpful presence so that you can kind of separate, like motion and like be saying like that’s part of.

Becca:
[1:01:32] You’re, you will see your helpful president so that you can kind of separate. Yeah.
B person. He’s like part of why as I just can’t separate work.

Maggie:
[1:01:39] Because I just like, I know that’s part of why I could never be a doctor, is I just can’t separate the emotions from the work kind of thing.

Taylor:
[1:01:43] Right? Yeah. That’s also why I can’t be a doctor. The only reason for the records, the only thing that I didn’t go for medical school, I’m just too emotional and caring.

Becca:
[1:01:45] I think I love this.
That’s what held me back the records. The only, you know, everybody Yeah. Two.
Um I tend to be um I tend to be able to keep a fairly calm presence.
Um and I think it would be even that would come even more naturally if it’s not someone who I love. Like um yeah, if it’s not a loved one of mine, I think it’s something that I would be able to do and it’s something I really want to do.

Maggie:
[1:02:19] Yeah, no, I love that. I have a friend who volunteers at Hospice is, and he’s amazing at it. Um, and he’s like one of the most loving, caring people I know, but he’s just able to be that person. So cool. We need those people. So that’s awesome. That’d be great.

Taylor:
[1:02:36] Also just think old people are cool, Like I genuinely enjoy hanging out with older people.
I think they have so many funny and interesting things to say about the world at that point. You’ve like seen it all, you don’t really give a ship and you just say what you think.
Obviously some old people can be like racist and annoying, but there’s a lot of really cool people out there and we treat them like shit and we should think about them more and care about,
taking care of them because we’re going to be those people one day and she had a really good end summary of the book where she basically is like you need to advocate for yourself because you’re going to be in that position one day.
If you’re lucky enough you’re going to be you’re going to be part of a geriatric aging society.
And our laws affect like what we vote on now and the the things we care about now in politics and policies affect our quality of life later on and like what we are able to have access to,
which I thought was really interesting.
So we should care about having programs where people can have access to better quality of life and you know.

Jewels:
[1:03:42] And major changes like death with dignity, laws across the entire nation and not only very specific states.
Because you should be able to have those options to really control your end of life.
And the point if you are conscious and in a state of mind to make the decision of when that transition point is for you between quality of life having gone way past what year enjoying anymore, You know,
because we should have better systems both for like early in life, a full life mental health care and then also,
not avoiding the topic of death and making it completely taboo because there are everyone’s going to die at some point in our current.
Mhm current, you know.

Taylor:
[1:04:30] Unless we get uploaded to the matrix julie.

Jewels:
[1:04:32] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Until we get uploaded to the Matrix.
We all are going to die at some point and in our culture it’s not okay to talk about it. Not okay to plan to make that, you know, as peaceful and joyful as possible.

Maggie:
[1:04:48] Yeah, like when I was thinking about potentially having a life altering disease, I was like, I don’t want to burden people with this,
and like, I’m sure there’s a lot of people that feel that way where they’re like, I don’t want my family to go through this, but this is I don’t have a choice and like the system is set up that I have to make my daughter suffer and take care of me.
Or like I have to go be in a nursing home that’s I’m gonna die watching someone shooting a bucket and it’s like they don’t want to, that’s not what they want, right? Like.

Taylor:
[1:05:13] Uh huh. They don’t want to. Yeah, it’s not what they want. Yeah.
Honestly, that’s one of the biggest motivators for me for having more money is like, I want to be able to fucking like live in a nice spot when I die.
Like whether it’s like a boujee ass fucking nursing home where they’re giving you like the creme de la creme of treats every day. You know, you’re getting like full on candy bar set up.
I did like in the last chapter when she was like, there is a point. Yeah.

Jewels:
[1:05:41] I did like in the last chapter when she was like, there is a point at which eating healthy or you know, doing all the things that helped you stay healthy laid into life.

Taylor:
[1:05:45] Does it matter?
Right? Let them have the fucking ice cream, ice cream, whatever they want. Exactly, definitely.

Jewels:
[1:05:52] Don’t matter anymore. Live a little, enjoy, eat the bacon and the ice cream, whatever they want I’ve definitely seen with like elderly dog.

Taylor:
[1:06:02] Marshall. Yeah, I’ve been doing that with my dogs for quite a while. I’m like, they’re going to die soon. Data pagan.

Maggie:
[1:06:03] Say the same thing the dogs like.

Taylor:
[1:06:09] I just want their like to be happy.

Becca:
[1:06:15] There was uh the podcast criminal if anyone listens to Criminal, it’s so good.
There’s an episode called Final Exit and it’s where she, the host interviews this woman named Fran who essentially assists people in like compassionate deaths and like,
assists in suicides.
Like that’s not the phrasing that she uses for obvious reasons but there’s like these hoods that you can buy,
um or could at that point um and it’s like this like yeah hood you put over your head and then they fill it with a certain kind of gas and these people like,
are totally anonymous and come to your home and like help you die by suicide.
Um through like for people who are terminally ill and stuff like that.
And there’s a really really really interesting episode, Final Exit because they dive into the laws surrounding that. And so there’s a famous doctor.

Taylor:
[1:07:11] That is really interesting.

Maggie:
[1:07:12] So there’s a famous doctor, Doctor Kevorkian who’s like famous for that and there’s a movie about him played by Al Pacino, which I very much recommend.

Becca:
[1:07:16] Mhm Was like yeah the movie about played by you know very much recommend so but like spoiler alert doctors work feel like just Mhm.

Maggie:
[1:07:23] It’s so good. But like spoiler alert Wikipedia. Dr Kevorkian. He used to like help assisted suicide terminally ill people and eventually like got a life sentence imprisonment for assisted suicide.

Becca:
[1:07:31] And sentence,
this is what’s the movie called? Doctors are working? Okay. Uh huh.

Maggie:
[1:07:38] I think it’s called You Don’t Know Jack, because the doctor’s name was Jack Kevorkian.

Becca:
[1:07:41] Oh it’s a cutie name.

Taylor:
[1:07:46] Very interesting topic um that did remind me, she also talks a lot about hospice and how a lot of people say she had hospice with like, oh you don’t want to go there because you’re never getting out of it, like you’re admitting you’re going to die.
Um but she had some really good takes on it and I really, it really made me realize how ignorant I was of hospice, I just I only knew it very vaguely of like, oh hospices when you’re like on your deathbed.
Um but she advocated very strongly for enrolling in hospice as soon as possible, asking about your options, you know, figuring out,
if you can apply for it once you feel like, you know, you’re probably going to need it in the next couple weeks.
Um and how just how many benefits, you know, you can have going through hospice and all the things that they provide and all the care they provide, and it just, it really drastically increases the quality of your life.
She’s a big advocate for it, which I never even considered, it always just seems like something you have to do if like, you’re fucked, but like really Yeah, right.

Jewels:
[1:08:47] Once you’re really knocking on death’s door where she’s like, no, it could be six months a year longer.

Taylor:
[1:08:53] And it actually provides a lot of great things for your life earlier year in hospice care.

Jewels:
[1:08:54] Mm hmm. And in fact, the earlier you’re in hospice Care, which is largely focused around comfort care, pain management, emotional therapy like that type of stuff.

Taylor:
[1:08:59] What around comfort care palatable yeah, can actually extend your end of life.

Jewels:
[1:09:06] Can actually extend your end of life because you are more comfortable and healthy and not going through crazy medical procedures or anything like.

Taylor:
[1:09:10] That is really interesting. Yeah, it makes sense.
And I never thought about that, she kind of alludes to that a couple of times in the book where,
yeah, basically if you, if you are, if you feel more comfortable and happier, your life will probably be extended even if you have, you know, some kind of like eventually, like you’ll surmise to your disease or whatever.
Um you’re, yeah, you’re like more likely to live longer with palatable care and like non invasive treatments, palliative.

Jewels:
[1:09:42] Palliative it is also palatable but yeah, palliative palliative care. Uh huh.

Taylor:
[1:09:44] Palatable palliative, whatever.

Jewels:
[1:09:50] Um And you can un enroll from hospice.
So if you go into hospice and you’re basically foregoing more advanced medical treatment. But then some new procedure comes up and you are really great candidate for it. You do want to take the risk.
You can un enroll in hospice care and return to traditional medicine. All right.

Becca:
[1:10:11] I so I also didn’t and I don’t even know if I still fully understand exactly if hospice seems to just be a category of care.

Jewels:
[1:10:12] Well I also and I you know. Yeah exact.
Yeah hospice seems because She was saying like if one hospice doesn’t no.

Becca:
[1:10:20] Because she was saying like if one hospice doesn’t accept your application for enrollment, a different hospice might, meaning that there’s not just this like all like omniscient.

Jewels:
[1:10:27] Meaning that there’s not just this like all like. Yeah.
Yeah. He was very religious like the church.

Taylor:
[1:10:32] I know it does feel that way Yeah Is Yeah, like the 13th floor.

Becca:
[1:10:33] It does, it does. It feels like, yeah, you’re entering your last rites and there, Yeah.

Jewels:
[1:10:38] Yeah floor.
So yeah hospice is not just one singular organized.

Becca:
[1:10:42] So yeah, hospice is not just one singular organism that you have to make your way into. There are multiple hospice is likely in your area.
And if you no, please.

Jewels:
[1:10:53] And not sorry. And it’s not necessarily a place there are hospices that have facilities where people live.
But most hospice in the U. S. These days is actually just an organization that can serve you while you’re at home or in the hospital.

Taylor:
[1:11:09] And it sounds like there are specific uh jobs that will help people or specific people that their whole job is to help you figure out what your options are.
Like I think there’s like geriatric lawyers she mentioned or something like that. Right?
There’s like certain lawyers that deal with like geriatric laws and like medical laws around that.
And then there’s certain professions that deal with like figuring out what your next step should be in terms of where you are on your like, you know path.
Um which is, you know, so I guess I guess also just like talking to your doctors, getting everyone’s opinion, talking to your family and friends doing some research. Seeing what your options are.
Like if you find out you have a terminally ill camp, you know, disease or something like that.
Because it does feel overwhelming like all the different things that are out there and they’re not necessarily connected right? Like, like with government.

Jewels:
[1:12:06] Highly disjointed.

Taylor:
[1:12:07] Yes. They’re all disjointed And like it’s kind of unclear sometimes what your options are, what’s affordable, what’s you know, available to you.
So maybe even finding someone that can help you figure that out or reading this book. This book was really helpful with that.
Um I feel like when I, when I come to that point where I’m like, okay, Maybe like 10 years I’d like to revisit and be like, Okay now I need to like really sit down and do it.

Maggie:
[1:12:34] Do it now. I’m going to pull a bunch of the work of and then ourselves and also there. That would.

Jewels:
[1:12:35] We’re going to put, I’m going to pull a bunch of the worksheets and stuff and then we can go through it for ourselves and then we can also use that as an exercise to prepare for having a conversation with our parents and other loved ones.

Taylor:
[1:12:35] We’re going to all events in the world,
for ourselves. Mm hmm.
That would be ah Yeah, I do want to talk to my mom about that stuff. Mhm.

Becca:
[1:12:46] I would love that.

Maggie:
[1:12:46] Yeah. Yeah because you know what I tell Phil I have a cold and she breaks down so I need some some hard hard written rules.

Jewels:
[1:12:48] Yeah. I have a call.

Taylor:
[1:12:53] She’s gonna need help. Yeah.

Jewels:
[1:12:54] Zach and I decided that we’re going to put a glass case in the hallway.

Maggie:
[1:12:58] We’re going to glass case in the hallway break in case of any have all the paperwork in it, the life insurance policy information, the advanced Iraq for our care.

Taylor:
[1:12:59] Last case always.

Jewels:
[1:13:00] That’s one of those break in case of emergency. We’re just in case of emergency or death and it’s going to be like the life insurance policy information, The advanced directives for our care, all of that kind of stuff.

Taylor:
[1:13:03] Mm hmm. Emergency or death. The life insurance policy information.
The for our care. You know, all of that kind of thing. Yeah.

Maggie:
[1:13:12] I actually have something like that. I have a folder in my house and Phil knows where it is.

Jewels:
[1:13:14] Have a folder in my house and put on right.

Taylor:
[1:13:15] My right.

Becca:
[1:13:16] Good, that’s so ideal.

Jewels:
[1:13:17] It’s brilliant. My mom just tells my boss’s phone number.

Maggie:
[1:13:17] Yeah. Has my boss’s phone number. It’s like I can’t come to work, call this number, tell my dad get a bunch of money.

Taylor:
[1:13:18] See. My mom just tells me where she’s hidden. Her jewelry number. Salamander.

Jewels:
[1:13:24] All right. My yeah, way more helpful.

Taylor:
[1:13:27] Yeah. That’s way more helpful.

Maggie:
[1:13:28] Yeah, that’s way more helpful. But actually part of my plan if I died young was to be like I need the three of you.

Jewels:
[1:13:30] But actually part of my plan was too, I need the three of you and you’re right. This is my will or whatever download fill and be like finest.

Maggie:
[1:13:37] And I knew right this in my will or whatever to sit down with Phil and be like finances.
Alright. Alright you got this much money. That’s how much the mortgage is like.

Jewels:
[1:13:47] Well and so that was part of what went in the book too was just like, here’s the year of grieving where it’s like okay everything.

Maggie:
[1:13:49] So that was part of what went in the book too is just like, here’s the year of grieving where it’s like okay everything, there’s enough money from life insurance or whatever but like which of the friends takes over like right because you’re not going to get a place.

Jewels:
[1:13:55] There’s enough money from life insurance or whatever. But like which of the friends takes over the finances and just just takes it away and like who do you move in with because there’s no way that my husband should be left alone if I die.

Maggie:
[1:14:03] Yeah, there’s no way that my husband should be left alone if I die.
He’s a very.

Jewels:
[1:14:11] Yes. Your house is our post hospice.

Becca:
[1:14:11] All of us are moving in all if anyone dies, you’re yeah, you’re my retirement home.

Taylor:
[1:14:19] Put it in the working document, like just thinking through those things. Damn.

Jewels:
[1:14:20] But like just thinking through those things in advance where it’s like okay when you’re in that really, you know, grievous state not having to make those decisions.

Taylor:
[1:14:24] And you’re the ST Yeah, just.

Jewels:
[1:14:29] It’s just like your community has already been informed how you want them to come around and support you.

Taylor:
[1:14:31] These are formed how.
Mhm. Yeah, absolutely.

Jewels:
[1:14:38] And making it easy for them to do that.

Taylor:
[1:14:42] I did have one more interesting quote that I just found in my notes. It says more than 2/5 of Americans over 65 are on more than four medications.
And many of these drugs increase their risk of falling developing dementia or damaging a vital organ. 2/5.
That’s crazy. That is like a huge amount of people that kind of blew my mind when I thought when I really thought about that, how many people are medicated?
But older people that are medicated that also it greatly increases their chances of developing like life threatening or quality of life reducing symptoms.
Accelerating. Yeah.

Jewels:
[1:15:18] Are accelerating their aging somehow.

Taylor:
[1:15:23] And then medication. Sorry, I’m just I’m just now finding all of my like,
little quotes, But it says a part of the next part of that is medication reactions and people over 65 account for 1/4 of all emergency room visits and half of all hospitalizations for medication errors, some of which prove fatal.
Your best case scenario is that it’s an expensive, miserable trip to the hospital that you get to go home after the end of it.

Maggie:
[1:15:47] It is mind boggling how easy it is to make a medication error so easy.
And like I said, people go to different pharmacies to fill different drugs, so no one, no doctor, no pharmacist knows that this person is taking about those drugs but just like remembering to take your morning pills in your night pills, I do with the fucking dog.
Like did you give him his morning pills? I don’t remember. Did you give him his morning pills? Guess we’re double dose on the dog today. Like kind of sh it’s like how easy is it? It’s so easy to funk up.

Jewels:
[1:16:19] So I did find the doctor questions that I thought were super helpful for deciding whether or not to continue with some of the more high risk procedures or treatment plans versus switching to comfort care,
and I can run through them really quickly.
It was asking the doctor, can you sketch the usual trajectory of my illness?
And she breaks down these really cool trajectories in the book where they’re sort of like looping ones where you’re in and out of the hospital a lot, but you have intermittent better periods.
There’s like a slow and steady decline trajectory.
Um and then you just drop dead. But she has like all of these. And it was super helpful to be able to ask the doctor like which of these patterns is the trajectory my illness that I know what I’m sort of going into and what type of treatment I want to pursue.
Um What do you hope this treatment will do for me? How will it affect how I feel day to day, pros cons alternatives.
What is it like to die of my disease? And how can medicine ease my symptoms?
So, if you know your terminal and you sort of know your timeline, but you want the best quality of life possible or you want to be able to be conscious all the way until death and be able to have conversation with your family. Like those might be different medication options.

[1:17:34] Um will you still be my doctor if I opt for strictly palliative care? Because this is a really tough decision. If you’re saying I’m not going to go through with this treatment, I’m going for palliative care.
But then do I lose this relationship that I’ve built up with a doctor who I trust for decades.
And then at what point do patients with my disease benefit most from hospice so the doctor can give you advice on when that transition point might be for you.

Taylor:
[1:17:58] Mhm Yeah, those are great.

Becca:
[1:17:59] That’s all yeah, great Question.

Maggie:
[1:18:00] I think also a lot especially with terminal illnesses there are societies and groups of people who have.
I’m trying to think of an example. The only thing of is a less because that one’s like fresh on my mind but there are like the A.
L. S. Society and they have like an amazing Q. And A. Section groups that meet up Monthly two especially for new members to talk them through like what to expect and just have a point of contact with people who are going through the same thing.
And so like especially with cancer specific types of cancer and stuff like that finding community like Beka said of people who have gone through it, family members who know what’s about to happen and resources to have.
Because some of that stuff like you’re so stressed out you don’t want to look up this information. Like what does Medicare cover not cover when you have pancreatic cancer versus lung cancer Like ship like that.
And it’s like oh these people have gone through it and they’re there to provide support and like use it.

Jewels:
[1:19:02] Yes, especially for cancer because a lot of survivors will serve as patient advocates because they had someone do that for them during their course of treatment.
So they go and they volunteered to be a patient advocate and they will come with you and your family to your appointments.
They will take the notes because if this is your first time going through treatment for a particular type of cancer, it’s a really big learning curve and it’s so much to take in and you’re probably going to be on a pretty hefty medications and treatments.
So you might not be quite there at your appointments, your family member who’s there, who might be making these decisions for you normally might also be really emotional and they may miss key points that the doctor makes.
But having a patient care advocate who’s gone through it, they already know the language the doctors using their kind of familiar with at least what treatment they went through or the decisions they had to make and they can take those notes and then break it down for you after.
And it’s a super, super valuable, amazing like volunteer service that people do yes, know what questions to ask.

Maggie:
[1:20:00] Well, it’s hard to know what questions to ask when you don’t know what questions to ask, so like having someone around who’s gone through it.

Jewels:
[1:20:04] Right? Not around gone through it, right.
Or sometimes it’s nurses also like people who have been in care for those types of patients. A lot will also serve as care advocates, like patient advocates.

Taylor:
[1:20:17] It would have been great to have something like that with my dad because I I remember going to the first appointment.
It was like our whole family went to the doctor’s appointment uh to discuss like his cancer and our options.
And I remember just being so overwhelmed. Like I didn’t even know what to ask.
I didn’t know there was no real conversation around all of the possibilities and what exactly what those types of questions. What does it look like for someone that has my disease? What is the trajectory?
There was none of that. It felt very much like this elephant of the room of like well what are his chances kind of thing which doctors never want to talk about obviously because there’s a lot of risk involved with that.
But I I wanted to talk about it and clearly that was not going to be discussed of like what what does this really look like here? What does this dizzy look like? What does his what are the chances, what are the different options?
The only conversation was what’s the most aggressive treatment that we can have. And so they went with a type of I think actually think it was a trial chemo that they did to treat it.

[1:21:27] But I I even remember my dad wanting to explore other options because he did ask about less invasive options because now in some hospitals they do offer you alternatives to chemo.
Um And I remember him talking about that because he was very scared of chemo and it kind of was just completely dismissed at the time.
And I think my mentality was also like, well that’s all bullshit, you know, like let’s just go with chemo.

[1:21:55] Um But looking back on it and like after having read this book, it does make me wish that we had had that those meetings differently and had talked about those, you know, had taken this more seriously, obviously,
like, you know,
chemo is probably still the most effective, you know, way to deal with cancer, but.

Maggie:
[1:22:17] But like what julie said, if someone came out to me right now and said Maggie, you have lung cancer.
I don’t think I would ask any questions. I would just sit there in shock and like, not know how to feel. Be thinking about my family immediately be thinking about like, end of life stuff.
And my next question wouldn’t be like, what other treatment options do I have? The only thing going on in my head would be I have cancer, Right? So like having someone who’s a little bit separated, not a direct family member.

Jewels:
[1:22:48] Who’s also knowledgeable about it is so helpful.

Maggie:
[1:22:48] God, who knows about it. God, I can’t even imagine like how much that could help people.

Taylor:
[1:22:54] Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Is interesting.
I remember googling it too and it The numbers were not great. It was like you know your chance of survival after five years. Just like 50%.
Which is better than some. But I guess I had a lot of questions around that that I never asked the doctors because it was like, well what why is it 50%?
What what’s the cause is it like environmental, is it because most people go back to drinking and smoking? Like what are the, what are the ways to prevent that? I wanted my dad to ask those questions but he was too scared to want to know. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t even google his cancer once.
Not that we know of, he just wanted, he was like whatever the doctor says, he didn’t even look it up.

Maggie:
[1:23:36] There’s some blessed ignorance.

Taylor:
[1:23:37] I’m blessed. Yeah. Offered where Yeah, they are facing a sudden illness.

Jewels:
[1:23:38] I have offered to friends before that if they are facing a sudden illness that’s unexpected that they don’t know a lot about and they have questions they want to google but they don’t want to end up in the web.

Taylor:
[1:23:48] They have and they want end up in the ah oh my God I do that all the time.

Jewels:
[1:23:52] MD spiral of death where it’s like you have a cough, you might be dying, you know?

Taylor:
[1:23:57] You have to call. You might be, I literally do that on it like a daily basis.

Jewels:
[1:24:01] So I’ve offered to friends. Yeah. Right.

Taylor:
[1:24:01] I’m like my left knee feels weird. Met him details me. I’m dying.

Jewels:
[1:24:07] Right. So I’ve offered to friends and this offer stands for all of you if you ever need it.
But if you’re facing something like that and you just want to send your questions to me. I’m happy to go and parse any available medical literature and read it and come back without the spiral of death, you know?

Becca:
[1:24:25] I was I did that last night at three in the morning because I was looking at my, why do I have a lump on my wrist?

Jewels:
[1:24:26] Right. I was looking at my why do I have a lump? Oh gosh.

Becca:
[1:24:34] Anyways? It’s not all pretty, it’s not all pretty. Yeah, we’ll see.

Jewels:
[1:24:34] It was you’re dying. Uh huh.
Did you all make any decisions about your own desires for end of life care or? Yeah.

Becca:
[1:24:45] Or yeah,
I honestly this I have to read it again to get to that point.
Um I think for me it made me realize how important it is for my parents to have this information.
Um And in my grandma, my grandma still alive and like, I mean I don’t think she’s in a mind where she could do these things, but maybe they could still be discussed.
And I think that my it’s my dad’s mom and I think my dad and his sister have different views on like quality of life versus length of life.
Um For grandma and I just really wish that he would read this or that his sister would read this or that they would both read this and just approach it differently because right now it’s like,
you know grandma’s been dying for years and she she just got an incredibly healthy body.
Um But it’s she’s just like in this facility and It’s a good one, but it’s she’s miserable most of the time. I don’t know.
Anyways it just made me really think about grandma a lot and now I don’t want that to be happened with my parents and then of course not with me either.
Um It made me really want to volunteer is like and spend more time in the community.

Maggie:
[1:26:03] I feel like I already faced most of these issues like growing up in health care,
um Volunteering and healthcare, um facing facing a potential potential life ending disease that hopefully I don’t have?

Jewels:
[1:26:11] You were dying this year, Like these?

Maggie:
[1:26:19] Um But I mean I was going to say earlier that I like, I straight up made a schedule of like julie can come have lunch with me on monday and then Becca will be there on monday night for dinner and then my mom will be there on Tuesday. Like I had it.

Jewels:
[1:26:19] Um, I mean I was going to say earlier that I like I straight yes, like julie can come up. Yeah.
And then Becca will be there on monday night for dinner and then my mom will be there on Tuesday. Like me, you’re undergoing you. Yeah, you might have got like the primo friday spotter. So.

Maggie:
[1:26:32] You were on the schedule to I only got through Tuesday, your Wednesday bitch.

Taylor:
[1:26:34] Chop game friday,
no I want, I want friday Saturdays give her the ice cream I.

Maggie:
[1:26:39] Wait, you just get me wasted.
She’s having a good time, I promise way.
Um But yeah, so like I faced a lot of these like idea, like I thought I thought about these things quite a bit already and I also,
had like a lot of family members either die young or like go through terminal illnesses um in the past two years my brother like had a stroke and we thought he was going to die.
So like seeing someone in a younger stage of life dealing with end of life choices kind of thing.
So like a lot of it I had heard before, but I think what kind of impacted me a little bit was that I assumed that based on my life experience that these are things that people knew, right?
Like I’m like, oh yeah, like of course you want everyone to know what your life choices. I’m like, oh wait, listen to this book.
Obviously not everyone goes through these experiences and needs to hear this and like talking to my partner Phil and being like, hey, have you thought about this? You’re like, no, why would I think about that? It’s like, right, right?

Jewels:
[1:27:46] Right, right, exactly.

Maggie:
[1:27:47] Like people need, people need to fucking here. This people need to know this stuff. These are conversations you need to have, you can’t just assume that people know these things. And I think that’s the big takeaway for me. It was just assuming that people would like come to these conclusions, right?
But unless you’ve experienced it, why would you?

Becca:
[1:28:05] Yeah, totally.

Taylor:
[1:28:07] What? Yeah. What really got me is that this kind of what we talked about the beginning is like everyone should read this book, but really everyone should read this book.
This is not just a like american specific or,
you know white specific, there’s no like oh this is only specific to one group of people like this is universal,
like everyone is going to experience this or go through this and everyone needs to think about it and plan for it and know what they want to be able to have people, you know tell people what they want.
Um So it just seems so important that,
like our parents read it and people we love and know really like already size into my mom after like day two I was like read this book my Juliet, give him that. Mhm.

Maggie:
[1:28:51] Yeah, I’m with julie, though, we got to give him the abbreviated version even because you know, they’re not going to read it at least my part.

Taylor:
[1:28:56] My work. Yeah well they have those um what is they have like apps and stuff that literally their whole business model is just abbreviating book help self help books.

Jewels:
[1:28:57] Workbook version. They have those. They have a.

[1:29:09] So yeah, I just mean like we need the three bullet points. It’s like think about these things and then tomorrow we’ll come back and fill out the next page. Think about these things and then come back and fill out the next page.

Maggie:
[1:29:22] I’ve had the casual conversation with my parents, like just this weekend hanging out with my dad, I was like, you know what, like I don’t want to personally be on a ventilator and a vegetable if there’s no hope of ever coming off of it.
Like don’t father kind of thing. Like if my life is not going to be a good quality and he’s like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, me too. And I’m like, right at the fuck down man, like put it, put it somewhere, Goddammit. Right that ship down man.
Like even if your parents talk to you about it, you don’t have a leg to stand on if it’s not documented.

Jewels:
[1:29:54] It is interesting for me to think just how little I know about what my parents would want because I feel like most people know how I feel about medical care,
and no one would leave me in a hospital hooked up to a bunch of machines very long. Thank you all.
Um But I really don’t know, you know, for my parents, they’re pretty young but still they do dangerous stuff.
Well both my parents have said mhm But again, put that in writing what?

Taylor:
[1:30:22] Whole family’s crazy my parents have said, says based yeah, legally your brother still has to say.

Maggie:
[1:30:24] Both my parents have said that I would be the one to make the choices. And so based on that,
been writing legally, your brother’s son has to say, well, yeah, both of them do, but based on that, I’m like, well, if you put me in charge, that means that you don’t want to be a vegetable because like I’m not gonna let that happen.

Jewels:
[1:30:34] Mhm. Based on that, I’m like, well if me in charge, that means that right.

Maggie:
[1:30:42] But one of my other brothers might. So it’s like, yeah, if you don’t write it down, then I’m also not very like, I don’t like conflict.

Jewels:
[1:30:42] One of my my yeah, you don’t write it down. Mm I’m also not very, huh?

Becca:
[1:30:50] Mhm. I’m fine mate.

Jewels:
[1:30:51] Like I’m fine making those decisions. But if you don’t put it in writing so that it’s easy for me to make my case, you’re going to destroy the relationship I have with my siblings. Yeah. Yeah.

Maggie:
[1:30:51] Sorry. Mhm.
Is it right?

Becca:
[1:31:00] Yeah.

Maggie:
[1:31:00] Yeah. And we, yeah, we talked about that earlier too and I don’t want to fight fucking like all my aunts and uncles to hate me like it like that. Like okay, going to put in my.

Jewels:
[1:31:04] Oh man.

Becca:
[1:31:04] Wait.

Jewels:
[1:31:07] Sure. Yeah.

Becca:
[1:31:09] It’s a thing.

Taylor:
[1:31:10] I’m going to put in my will that I want to be uploaded to a machine. Yeah. Carbon Yeah. Just just scan the brain uploaded. I know you can do it. I know you can do it.

Jewels:
[1:31:11] Going to.

Maggie:
[1:31:15] I think I would like to be in the show altered carbon.

Jewels:
[1:31:15] Like, I would like to be in the show part.
Right? Right. So even if they don’t have the technology to scan your brain and upload you in that way right now,
there are a I projects in the work that basically in the works that,
create you,
create a version of your consciousness based on all of the digital artifacts you have out on the internet. Is it?

Maggie:
[1:31:47] I was gonna say that have you do watch Black Mirror? I’ve seen okay I think it’s episode number four.

Jewels:
[1:31:50] I’ve seen like the first three episodes or something. So I haven’t seen that one, but but it goes terribly wrong if it’s a black mirror episode.

Maggie:
[1:31:54] So there’s a Black Mirror episode where this exact same exactly what you’re saying is an episode of Black Man terribly wrong.
I wouldn’t say of the Black Mirror episodes not terribly wrong but it definitely doesn’t go right. Like it’s it’s weird.
He’s not quite right like he’s not exactly who he was because he’s based on data kind of thing and like that’s noticeable sort of situation.
Like he’s good. He’s cool. He’s nice. He’s sweet but he’s not quite right.

Jewels:
[1:32:28] Well, I still don’t think you would have the awareness the same way, Like the the sentence is a whole nother level, but to be able to recreate you is sort of not that far off right, this.

Taylor:
[1:32:39] Well, it also be re it would also wouldn’t be me. If it wasn’t my consciousness uploaded, they were just recreating it, I would still be gone. I wouldn’t be experiencing whatever that replica was experiencing. Yeah.

Jewels:
[1:32:45] Exactly right,
to our current knowledge, correct. What was your major takeaway?

Maggie:
[1:32:53] What was your major takeaway julie? I think we’ve did ours, everyone read it julie. What’s your takeaway?

Taylor:
[1:32:53] What was your major takeaway?

Jewels:
[1:32:56] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Taylor:
[1:32:57] What was? Oh yeah, everyone should read it. That was my takeaway. Never wondering.

Jewels:
[1:33:02] Really chapstick, yeah, chapstick and do not leave me in a hospital and I want all the drugs.

Maggie:
[1:33:05] Yeah, dying like chapstick and do not leave me in the hospital and hell, yeah, drugs.

Becca:
[1:33:05] Yeah, her dying wish.

Jewels:
[1:33:12] Oh, I was gonna highlight one other um key point from a lot of research going on with psilocybin lately, is that like psilocybin for end of life care for terminally terminally ill patients.
And it’s with a lot of people who you know have,
near term death on the horizon from something like cancer and are really,
no, not at peace with death because most people aren’t, but after going through psilocybin sessions they find such peace and joy in the remaining days of their life and suddenly feel a much greater sense of well being and less fear of death.
And I think that’s such an amazing area of treatment.

Taylor:
[1:33:57] When I die because I do when I ever, whenever I’m on mushrooms, not that I’ve ever taken mushrooms because they’re illegal.
But if I had taken mushrooms, um you feel like so connected to the world and you just feel like everything is breathing together and everything has like this connection that you just don’t feel at all.
At least I don’t feel at all in my normal state of consciousness.

Maggie:
[1:34:17] Or you wouldn’t have you ever taken much?

Taylor:
[1:34:19] Yes. Yes. Had I ever taken mushrooms? I feel like that’s how I would feel.
And I could see being on my death bed feeling very peaceful being on mushrooms and just thinking like it’s fine. I’m just going into a different state of being now.
Um So yeah, suck me up on mushrooms man, if I’m on my deathbed, seriously, lisa actually?

Jewels:
[1:34:37] I’m really excited that this research is actually going on because I think it will make a huge difference for the next few generations of people going through those life phases.

Taylor:
[1:34:43] Mhm. Where?

[1:34:47] Yeah, it did make me think a lot more about different options because I do I think before I start reading this book, I was very much on the end of like just keep me alive as long as possible because I I think death is terrifying.

Jewels:
[1:34:49] I didn’t go right where I started very much. Mm. Just.

[1:35:00] Daddy. Sure. Yeah.

Taylor:
[1:35:02] I don’t think anything comes after it. I think we’re just gone. Um.

Jewels:
[1:35:05] That’s great. That’s better than the alternative. I don’t know if heaven sounds that great either. Okay.

Taylor:
[1:35:07] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know, I just Uh huh Yeah.

Maggie:
[1:35:11] Well, because you would obviously go to hell.

Taylor:
[1:35:16] Any and yeah, see the end of the other end. Yeah. The thought of eternity also is terrifying. It’s like, well, what’s outside of that and what’s outside that? How does space just keep going on forever and ever And it doesn’t make any sense of what’s outside that something has to be outside of it. What does it, it never ends. Does it make any sense?

Jewels:
[1:35:17] Overpopulated by now.
What what’s outside that? How does space just keep going on forever?
Yeah. Like being asleep is great. I don’t know what people are still worried about not having awareness because I think it’s the moment of transition is really scary having.

Taylor:
[1:35:29] Asleep? Is great people so worried about not having awareness because it’s like the unknown. It’s just terrifying.
It’s yeah, it’s it’s terrifying.
Yeah. No, I did make me think about my other options and caring more about not being miserable.

Maggie:
[1:35:50] I was gonna say, I think I’m especially proud of this podcast topic because, and thank you Becca for pushing it because we’ve been talking about for a while. Um I don’t think a lot of people our age have conversations with their friends like this and they probably should,
like being able to talk openly with your friends about it makes it easier to talk openly with your parents about it, Like actually take action on some of these items, so thanks guys.

Becca:
[1:36:17] Yeah, I appreciate it too. It does.

Taylor:
[1:36:20] I am no, I definitely want.

Becca:
[1:36:22] Well when thing is that, I feel like In your 20s and 30s and 40s and 50s, probably you really like treat your body like a tool and you’re like, you have to be used for various functions.
Um, and I feel like we’re, and maybe it’s our culture, like we’re not encouraged to listen to our body very often.
Um, like you kind of play through the pain most of the time.
Um, and I think books like this where they really emphasize like, hey, if you move your body now, it’s going to help it move it later.
It just, it just like reminded me of how important it is to be mindful of what your body is telling you even when you’re feel young and able bodied.

Taylor:
[1:37:06] I agree we all need to go to the doctor regularly.

Becca:
[1:37:09] Yeah,
Thanks for listening today. Thanks for tackling this tough subject with us.
If you have any follow up questions or anything to add any experiences you want to tell us about, we definitely want to hear them.
You can go to our website, vagina. Com, go to our instagram at vaginas podcast, like subscribe all of that fun stuff on wherever it is.
You get your podcasts, all of that helps us and get our exposure out and have it helps us find more people to listen to this, to think about their impending doom and that’s really what we’re all here for. Yeah.

Taylor:
[1:37:46] Everyone to think about death all the time, at least I do really want to hear.

Becca:
[1:37:47] All the time. At least once at least a little bit I do here. If anyone has to read.

Taylor:
[1:37:52] If anyone has stories about their own experiences with dealing with family, end of life situations that would be really interesting to hear, let us know share your angst and pain and torment.

Becca:
[1:37:55] Right, Right. Like,
absolutely any share your yeah, you had a great experience, sorry, place share those stories.

Jewels:
[1:38:05] Or especially if you had a great experience because you had certain things in place. Please share those stories with us. Give us some hope, critical, certain information, one trick.

Becca:
[1:38:11] Some yeah. Any critical advice or information you have we want.

Maggie:
[1:38:15] That’s true. I feel like most of what I’ve heard is negative, so if you have a positive story would be wonderful.

Jewels:
[1:38:18] We’d love it and in the show notes, will also include a lot of links to different resources worksheets, um, advanced directives, physician order, pulsed forms, all that kind of fun stuff,
that you should fill out for yourself and sit down with your parents and loved ones and encourage them to fill out as well.

Taylor:
[1:38:38] Really everyone should read this book and make their parents read this book.

Becca:
[1:38:42] The art of dying well by Katie. But.

Maggie:
[1:38:46] So do we love this book or your money or your life better? Because I feel like we’re we’re preaching them both hard. Maybe they should meet and we should have them both as guests simultaneously and see what crazy ship they come up with to talk about. They would get along.

Becca:
[1:38:46] So do book or your money or your life. Your money or your life. You kidding me? For free? Hard. Maybe they should mean we.
That was crazy. Talk about. I feel like they would get along very well. Mm. Friends. If they’re not already best friends, you might already be.

Maggie:
[1:39:00] Yeah. I bet they would to they be like best friends if they’re not already best friends.