St. James Lutheran Church is sponsoring an area-wide Health Forum event on “Making End-of-Life Health Care Choices” to which everyone is invited. Gretchen Brauer-Rieke, RN, MSN will be presenting material that will assist people who are thinking about end-of-life decisions, either for themselves or for their loved ones. Gretchen is a Certified Advance Care Planning Facilitator and author of the book “InAdvance: A Practical Guide to Making Your Own Health Care Decisions.”
By carefully thinking through what you want at the end of life, documenting those wishes, and then discussing them with your loved ones and health-care professionals, you can maintain control over important decisions that can have major effects on your quality of life. We will review each of these steps so that you will feel better equipped to make decisions with confidence.
While this can be a difficult subject – we all prefer to believe we are still too young and too healthy to start thinking about the end of our life – it is clear that none of us will escape death and that it is often unexpected. The time to plan is now as later may not come.
The information provided in this session is applicable not only to those who are seniors or in tenuous health, but also for those of us who have loved ones, perhaps parents, who are moving toward the end of life and need assistance in becoming more proactive with decision-making.
This Health Forum will be held at St. James Lutheran Church (1315 SW Park Ave., Portland) from 9 AM – Noon on Saturday, November 10, 2012. Everyone is welcome! We suggest a donation $5/person at the door to help cover expenses. Call the church office at 503-227-2439 to register!
