A shoebox full of end-of-life wishes, missing until after the funeral, initially inspired Dr. Laura Shoots to devise an online platform to share such information with loved ones.
It was “heartbreaking” that her family found her grandfather’s wishes after the fact, so Shoots wants to help others avoid a similar situation, she told The Spectator in an interview.
In her work as an ER doctor, she regularly sees how unprepared people are for medical emergencies or death.
For instance, she has had patients leave the hospital against medical advice because they have a pet at home “and they don’t have any kind of emergency plan for what happens if they’re hospitalized,” Shoots said.
“We teach kids to do fire drills. And how often do we have a fire?” Yet, “everybody’s going to die,” Shoots said.
Her experiences spurred her to create Take Care, a digital platform to help people plan for emergencies and “deal with all of the decisions that come before you die, while you’re dying, and after you die,” the website explains.
It gives prompts ranging from whether there is a safety deposit box people should know about, to what someone’s wishes are for their Facebook page — should it be memorialized? Who has the information needed to shut it down?
The idea is people will fill it out and share with their family, Shoots said.
She also hopes the process will facilitate an easier way to broach the sensitive topic of death.
The platform is scheduled to launch over the next several months, but in the lead-up, Shoots has been focus-group testing, meeting with various physicians, and reviewing the literature, because a lot of it is evidence based. “What I’m building is stuff that is proven to help,” Shoots said.
Someone Shoots spoke with in the process is Barb Longo, whose husband John died four and a half months ago from incurable cancer.
His diagnosis gave them time to prepare and have lots of conversations around his end-of-life wishes, but still, there were surprises, Longo said.
The couple had their wills updated, and met with their financial planner. Longo knew where important documents were, like marriage and birth certificates, his social insurance card.
“It was also important for us to make a list of any subscriptions he had, memberships (like Costco and CAA), and his passwords,” Longo told The Spectator over a phone call.
They talked about his wishes, how and where he wanted to die when the time came.
“But the reality is, it doesn’t matter how much time people have — sudden death versus someone like us who had years — you’re never prepared,” Longo said.
She said in retrospect, she wished they’d had more conversations about the things her husband normally took care of around car and home maintenance — when to change water softener filters or where the shut-off valves for the outside taps were, for instance.
“There were so many things we just overlooked,” she said.
The funeral home took care of some of the time sensitive notifications and had a binder of information, but it’s the kind of information that would have been helpful ahead of time, she said.
“People don’t know what they don’t know,” Shoots said.
She likened it to getting married. The marriage certificate is the legal aspect, but typically there are many more details to plan, like guest list, venue, food options, and music.
“That’s what Take Care is,” it’s all the additional details, she said.
Her thought is that by providing a framework for people, it will help them get organized “and make these stressful things less stressful.”
She pointed to the recent societal shift that encourages talking about mental health. “I’m hoping to be a part of the shift that it’s OK to talk about end of life.”
To start the conversation, she’s hosting a series of free webinars, marketed to the Brantford-Brant community where she works and resides, with the next one on Sept. 19.
To register, visit takecaretogether.ca/upcoming-events.