{"id":42,"date":"2011-01-28T00:50:51","date_gmt":"2011-01-28T00:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.caassetprotection.com\/blog\/?p=42"},"modified":"2023-02-01T17:29:47","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T17:29:47","slug":"contemplations-on-advanced-planning-after-the-recent-tucson-tragedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/blog\/contemplations-on-advanced-planning-after-the-recent-tucson-tragedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Contemplations on Advanced Planning After the Recent Tucson Tragedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever since the tragic shooting in Tucson earlier this month I\u2019ve been thinking about Gabrielle Giffords and her family, as well as the other victims of the shooting.\u00a0 Thankfully, Ms. Giffords survived and by all accounts is making an amazing recovery.\u00a0 The most recent news<\/a> reports that her condition has been updated from \u201cserious\u201d to \u201cgood,\u201d that she is awake and interacting with visitors, and was moved on Wednesday from the hospital in Houston to a nearby rehabilitation facility.\u00a0 All of this is wonderful news, but not all of the victims were so lucky, and we mourn for the families of the 6 victims who were killed<\/a> by the gunman. This terrible act, unexpected and unexplained, has me thinking about my own friends and family, and how close any of us might be to similar unexpected tragedies.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Events like this, although tragic, can be motivating.\u00a0 While it is not my intention to scare, I do urge all of my readers to consider how important it is to have an updated Advance Health Care Directive<\/strong>.\u00a0 You don\u2019t have to be a politician or well-known public figure to be in danger of illness or injury. Does your family know what your wishes are should the unthinkable happen?\u00a0 An Advance Health Care Directive is the document which ensures you have the right person making health care decisions for you if you are unable to make them for yourself; and<\/em> ensures that your agent, your doctor, and your extended family knows your preferences for life-saving measures.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

An Advance Health Care Directive is one of the pillars of a good estate plan, and as a stand-alone document it is fairly straightforward, yet despite this only 2 out of 5 Americans have created an advance directive for themselves (according to a 2007 Harris poll.) Why have so many people neglected this simple yet essential document?\u00a0 The most likely answer is that death and dying is hard think about, and even more difficult to discuss. But if you find it hard to think about end-of-life decisions right now, consider how much more difficult and painful it will be for your loved ones to have to make those decisions for you if something were to happen.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Being able to help my clients navigate these tough choices\u2014working with them to ensure their loved ones are protected and provided for in case of unexpected circumstances\u2014is one of the best parts of what I do as an estate planning attorney.\u00a0 Of course nobody wants to think about death or dying, but I like to remember the old saying which advises us to \u201chope for the best, but prepare for the worst.\u201d\u00a0 By helping my clients prepare for the difficult parts of life, I also help them hope and plan for the best.<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever since the tragic shooting in Tucson earlier this month I\u2019ve been thinking about Gabrielle Giffords and her family, as well as the other victims of the shooting.\u00a0 Thankfully, Ms. Giffords survived and by all accounts is making an amazing recovery.\u00a0 The most recent news reports that her condition has been updated from \u201cserious\u201d to… Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,12],"tags":[124,56,57,58,59,60],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-estate-planning","category-news-and-current-events","tag-end-of-life-care","tag-gabrielle-giffords","tag-health-care-agent","tag-health-care-directive","tag-living-will","tag-tucson"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caassetprotection.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caassetprotection.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caassetprotection.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caassetprotection.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caassetprotection.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.caassetprotection.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":588,"href":"https:\/\/www.caassetprotection.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions\/588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caassetprotection.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caassetprotection.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caassetprotection.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}