Advanced directives aren't for only-need-CPR. It is prognosis dependent. At least mine is.

And it also is a designation of donation of organs for certain purposes over others.

Heh. Well, exactly. I have no directives to advance...[edit: if i had dependants, like you do, or a partner, I figure I would need more of that kind of thing, but...]

My mother insisted that everyone in the family put a cell phone entry under "ICE" (for In Case of Emergency) with all the emergency numbers. On some TV show, they said that the first responders know to look for that. I probably ought to put in my allergy info, too, now that you mention it. Though the only medication I'm allergic to is an antibiotic that's been take off the US market because way too many people had allergic reactions to it. (Discovering that allergy was freaky. One day, I was at a rehearsal, and I was supposed to be dancing, and I realized that I couldn't bend my knee. Had some weird bumpiness and swelling around it, but I'd been having knee problems all year, so I figured this was just one more weird thing. Went home, went to sleep, woke up, and could only open one eye. Went to a mirror and freaked out -- I was covered with hives, including several around my knee that were keeping it from bending, and one of my eyelid that was keeping that eye swollen shut.)

But you do. You just said that if you were goop-for-brains you wouldn't want to be kept alive. That's an advanced directive.

Well, yeah, but as I said--if I have goop-for-brains, I probably won't care if I'm still alive, so if it makes someone else feel better, so be it.

I know my parents have it written somewhere that if they're both unable to make decisions, I'm in charge of medical decisions and my sister's in charge of financial decisions. I've talked to both of them about what they'd want. My mom is pretty clear on what she wants. My dad doesn't seem to really know -- he's told me a few specific scenarios where he knows what he'd want, but he didn't have any sort of general philosophy the way my mom did.

My dad has been convinced for several years that he is dying anytime now. (He may, he's not in great health, though nothing in particular is heading to dead, specifically) On the way out of the house my sister and I were discussing his "but you might get hit by a bus!" thing--earlier, she'd shown up for dinner while my mom and I were still at the movies, and dad had run to the store. She was like "Eh, I figured he'd died and you were all at the hospital" (our cellphones were off, in the movie, and dad doesn't have one).

She said dad told her his wishes recently, because he's obsessed lately...but then said she tuned it out! I was like "Ah well. He'll be dead, what'll he do, haunt us?"

In non-medical news, the trails of Mt. Davidson are currently covered in forget-me-nots. So pretty. And a total throwback to my childhood.

Mom talked my dad out of donating his body to science. We're all fine with organ donation, but the idea of him being someone's medical cadaver was a bit creepy.

It might be possible that the world needed an open-toed boot, but I'm pretty sure this ain't it. How hideous.

At least Leeloo from The Fifth Element now has shoes to go with her outfit.

I did a quick google and came up with a 5 wishes PDF that seemed like it outlined some important stuff, but wishes 3 through 5 are all schmoopy and shit, so NSM.

A part of it reads:

Life-support treatment means any medical procedure, device or medication to keep me alive. Life-support treatment includes: medical devices put in t o help me breathe; food and water supplied by medical device (tube feeding); CPR; major surgery; blood transfusions; antibiotics; dialysis and anything else meant to keep me alive.

Reading that I realise I don't put artificially assisted nourishment in the same box as artificially assisted breathing--if I'm unconconscious and can breathe for myself I totally don't think about it as big a deal as if I'm unconscious and can't.

Also, I'd have no hesitation about CPR--it's the state I'm in after that that makes the difference.

But I guess the focus is--this is in play if you cannot communicate. Simply enough--if I can't, and it really doesn't look like I'm going to regain that ability, yank it! That's the long and the short of my directives. If I'm not walking out of that room, might as well carry me out right about now.