VIDEO: Life Decisions and Preparing for the Unknown

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – Planning ahead and making your wishes known, will likely save your loved ones the added emotional turmoil during a crisis situation.

It’s a conversation Doctor Kari Goan has with patients every day.

She helps guide them into the decision that best fits them, if they don’t already know.

“Take a look at quality and quantity, and the things we can do for people and the things we sometimes do to people, and work together with my patients and my families, and try to pick what would be most in line with their believes, and what they would want.”

Sometimes illness hits out of the blue, or tragedies like car wrecks strike, and you never know when that ultimate decision will have to play out.

“A lot of times, it can be a total surprise. A perfectly, healthy, normal twenty-year old can have an accident and is unable to make decisions for themselves and it automatically falls on someone else, so these are conversations everyone needs to have.”

The conversations make it easier for everyone involved because they know what that person wants.

“It’s always hard to guess what someone would want in any situation, but when it comes to their quality of life, that brings a different level of stress, so I see a lot of times families will argue, families will fight, and it’s just a lot of turmoil in an already stressful situation.”

Director of Pastoral Care Steve Brown was recently on the other side of the equation when he lost his mother.

Brown says he was very heartbroken, but was also thankful he and his family knew her wishes.

“They did not want to be on a ventilator, so as a son, as a loved one, it was a very difficult thing to honor her wishes, but that’s what I try to do here everyday in the hospital, is respect the patient’s wishes for how they want to be cared for when they’re facing end of life issues.”

You can change your decision at any time and it is very important to let loved ones and physicians know your choice.