How will you plan for your final days

[greydigger]

That is neat Beth. I love the treasure map idea.
Splitting clues makes all of the cooperate.
I think I would like to do that.
Also would like not to burden them with my cost of dying.
Guess I will have to call , uh, where?
Crematorium?
Can my old bod be sent to them?
I did put the thing on my drivers license that I can be used for research.
Will they pay for that?
Who do I ask?

Grey

 

[Michigan Badger]

I want to be cremated and the ashes mixed into paints for my last "great work."

The only problem I have now is how I'm going to do that final painting?

 

[mrs.oroblanco]

Contact your state crematory site. Most have where you can pay ahead, and when you are gone, you call the 1-800 number, and the closest person to where you live will come and pick up your body and have it done, and returned to your loved ones.

I did it with both my parents (rather, they did), and it worked out so well, that we decided to do it the same way.

Beth


PS: Also, you get a guaranteed price if pre-paid

 

[gord]

Contact your state crematory site. Most have where you can pay ahead, and when you are gone, you call the 1-800 number, and the closest person to where you live will come and pick up your body and have it done, and returned to your loved ones.

I did it with both my parents (rather, they did), and it worked out so well, that we decided to do it the same way.

Beth


PS: Also, you get a guaranteed price if pre-paid

Gee, Ma Bell has really outdone herself! WATS numbers now that work from beyond the pale!

 

[stefen]

Have the funeral service within 24 hours...and like Truckin said, have a BBQ on me, listen to my choice of music and toast to those left behind.

I want to have a pint of Platt Valley whiskey poured over me (and not strained thru kidney's first)...

And have my daughter deposit my ashes by horseback in the back country...

 

[jeff of pa]

Hopefully

Standing on top of a tower,
arms out stretched,
one finger on each hand pointing up,
& Screaming 2 appropriate words,
While being Struck & Lit up by Lightening
at the Spry age of 666 when I Give up
on this Planet

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

My organs go to anyone who needs them and the rest is to be cremated. Hopefully a nephew will see I'm tossed in the woods or over a lake if THE ADMIRAL isn't up to it. She's older than me (shameless cougar).

It took my Dad two years to die by inches through a series of strokes, loss of speech and then blindness. I'd much rather have something sudden occur. And if you've ever seen me drive you'd know that's a good possibility.

 

[mrs.oroblanco]

Well, CharlieP,

I can tell you from personal experience that having a stroke, at least, doesn't hurt. However, it is a PITA afterwards. A sudden deadly stroke would not be a bad way to go - and in my sleep, if possible. Actually, when I had my stroke, I had absolutely no clue it was happening. Luckily, my husband realized quite quickly that ooobadiiiifaakadapooafe was not a real sentence, and knew I was having a stroke. I, on the other hand, couldn't figure out why he was acting so strange, while he threw me in the car after making me take an aspirin. It takes awhile for the "victim" to figure it out. However, looking back on it now, I realize that there were signs that I missed - pretty big ones. Of course, that's the problem with strokes - you are not thinking straight, so, all that silver dust that is on the tv screen just needs cleaning. (I was seeing what I thought was silvery looking dust for about 4 days before it happened, and I attempted to dust the entire house, and had told the hubby that the dogs must be shedding or something, and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why he couldn't see all that dust). The dust was all gone when I got back from the hospital.

Jeff,

With my luck, with your way, I'd end up "dead" from the eyes down, but still alive.

Beth

 

[greydigger]

Have no answer so far as to my question.
I have on my drivers lincese that my body could be used for research.
Has that happened to anyone that you know and then what happens?
My uncle was held in the city morgue freezer until released to a licenced mortuary.
I could not "pick up his body" and take it in my car.
Still wonder what price for cremation.
Don't want to leave my kids the bill.
Grey

 

[Twisted One]

Have no answer so far as to my question.
I have on my drivers lincese that my body could be used for research.
Has that happened to anyone that you know and then what happens?
My uncle was held in the city morgue freezer until released to a licenced mortuary.
I could not "pick up his body" and take it in my car.
Still wonder what price for cremation.
Don't want to leave my kids the bill.
Grey

You should call a local mortuary place and ask them about cost. Typically it varies every where.

As for research, I am pretty sure if you leave your body to research it can end up in any number of places, and sadly in some case many places at once. I believe major research facilities put out a list of things they need to all morgues, not necessarily just specific part, but sometimes they need a body of someone that died in a specific way, or someone of specific ethnic background, size, etc...
A lot of times you will end up in a university for medical students, or for biology class. It all depends on your location and if they have a use for your body.
The nice thing is you will get to travel, they usually don't keep your body in your area, last thing you need is your niece that is in pre-med to go to her biology class and find her cadaver is her favorite old uncle charlie. It's happened before though.

Whatever your plans, make sure someone close to you knows what you want before the time comes if it's important to you. You don't want something like leaving your body to research coming to as a shock to loved ones that intended a nice service.

 

[rocky raccoon]

this would be a good way......

 

[Michigan Badger]

Hopefully

Standing on top of a tower,
arms out stretched,
one finger on each hand pointing up,
& Screaming 2 appropriate words,
While being Struck & Lit up by Lightening
at the Spry age of 666 when I Give up
on this Planet

Man! This inspired me to do a painting....thanks!

 

[mrs.oroblanco]

Good Lord, greydigger,

Where did you want to drive him to?

We had a neighbor who could not make it to his mother when she died (he is disabled), and I was able to arrange for the funeral home to load it in the hearse and bring it to his house. He spent a couple of hours with his dead mother, and then they loaded her back up and took her back to the funeral home.

Do you really want to know what happens to your body when you leave it to science? It is different than leaving it for "parts". I mean, I'm glad, I guess that people do, because, when I was in nursing school, we had use of more than one cadaver.

Any number of things can happen.

First - have you designated a certain facility? Because, that can make a difference. If it goes to specific universities or medical schools, they may actually charge your heirs. (depends on how the facility is funded).

Second - It can be used to practice surgery, of all kinds - removal and reattaching of limbs and other things, it can be used to grow skin grafts (parts), it can be used to train autopsy students, your head can be used to practice facelifts, and many other types of facial surgery - from burns to wounds to cleft pallets.

It can teach students how to implant teeth. It can be used to teach students what happens as the body decays. (that also teaches investigators of crime, to help them learn how to identify times of death). It can be put in a grave, or a trash bag, the trunk of a car or a freezer - all to learn how victims cases can be solved by forensics.

Our cadavers had lots and lots of stitching and injections (can't kill a cadaver with an air bubble).

You can be used to test safety equipment - a human crash dummy - it can be used to see exactly what happens when a body is thrown over a cliff post-mordem, rather than while still alive.

Know enough, yet? Sounds grisly, I know, but, honestly - cadavers have saved thousands and thousands of lives. Know exactly what you want to do, because you influence AFTER, is very slight. Certain institutions, if you set it up with them in advance, will make minimal "exceptions", if you ask.

Sometimes - you do end up all over the place. If an institute needs heads, and one needs arms and one needs feet - (and they do test prosthetic devices on cadavers, sometimes, along with learning better techniques to put our soldiers back together better) - you are going to travel - and maybe more than once.

There is one institute, I think its called ScienceCare (but not positive), who will take care of your final expenses and bear all the costs of transportation, etc.

Personally, if I left my body to science, I would donate it to a certain institution of my choosing. Then your family just has to call them, and they will do the rest. And most funeral homes know how to hold a body for scientific research (its a little different), especially if you are planning on a funeral.

Aren't you sorry you asked?

Beth

 

[piegrande]

My son went through med school, and he assured me the conduct of students with the donated bodies was respectful and mature. Nothing like MASH doctors in the TV show.

 

[Twisted One]

Good Lord, greydigger,

Where did you want to drive him to?

We had a neighbor who could not make it to his mother when she died (he is disabled), and I was able to arrange for the funeral home to load it in the hearse and bring it to his house. He spent a couple of hours with his dead mother, and then they loaded her back up and took her back to the funeral home.

Do you really want to know what happens to your body when you leave it to science? It is different than leaving it for "parts". I mean, I'm glad, I guess that people do, because, when I was in nursing school, we had use of more than one cadaver.

Any number of things can happen.

First - have you designated a certain facility? Because, that can make a difference. If it goes to specific universities or medical schools, they may actually charge your heirs. (depends on how the facility is funded).

Second - It can be used to practice surgery, of all kinds - removal and reattaching of limbs and other things, it can be used to grow skin grafts (parts), it can be used to train autopsy students, your head can be used to practice facelifts, and many other types of facial surgery - from burns to wounds to cleft pallets.

It can teach students how to implant teeth. It can be used to teach students what happens as the body decays. (that also teaches investigators of crime, to help them learn how to identify times of death). It can be put in a grave, or a trash bag, the trunk of a car or a freezer - all to learn how victims cases can be solved by forensics.

Our cadavers had lots and lots of stitching and injections (can't kill a cadaver with an air bubble).

You can be used to test safety equipment - a human crash dummy - it can be used to see exactly what happens when a body is thrown over a cliff post-mordem, rather than while still alive.

Know enough, yet? Sounds grisly, I know, but, honestly - cadavers have saved thousands and thousands of lives. Know exactly what you want to do, because you influence AFTER, is very slight. Certain institutions, if you set it up with them in advance, will make minimal "exceptions", if you ask.

Sometimes - you do end up all over the place. If an institute needs heads, and one needs arms and one needs feet - (and they do test prosthetic devices on cadavers, sometimes, along with learning better techniques to put our soldiers back together better) - you are going to travel - and maybe more than once.

There is one institute, I think its called ScienceCare (but not positive), who will take care of your final expenses and bear all the costs of transportation, etc.

Personally, if I left my body to science, I would donate it to a certain institution of my choosing. Then your family just has to call them, and they will do the rest. And most funeral homes know how to hold a body for scientific research (its a little different), especially if you are planning on a funeral.

Aren't you sorry you asked?

Beth

Too me it sounds like we are doing good, in the medieval days they would catapult your corpse over the walls of an enemy hold in hopes of starting a plague, or fouling their water supply.

 

[mrs.oroblanco]

Everyone in my class - and the other classes of interns, potential surgeons, etc., were, indeed, respectful - and VERY grateful that there are people willing
to do that sort of thing (donation).

In fact, where I went to school, the very first thing that was done, was a lecture on the sanctity of the human experience.

Beth

 

[greydigger]

Mrs. O and others -
When I got my drivers license I chose to be an "Anotomical Donor".
That is what it says on the back of my DL.
I presume that they can take any parts of my dead carcuss and help live people in some way.
I won't need it anymore and I hope to help live people.
Just wondered if my kin would have to pay more for that.
If so I would like to be cremated and ashes spread upon the ocean.
I almost died a couple years ago from too much drinking.
I decided to live a bit more and reconsidered my life.
Got it more or less on track and then my Lady almost died.
Kidney failure, lung failure, etc.
She had always said to be cremated.
Happily as of yesterday they are weaning off her tracheotomy tube. and she can talk.
Getting better.
But the question remains what costs?
Is my statement to be a doner going to cost my heirs?
The fact that I am gone should not be a burdon financialy.

Grey

 

[mrs.oroblanco]

I'm sorry to hear about your "lady", and glad to hear that she is coming off the trach - a big step.

In my previous post, I did answer your question. Contact a specific agency - and, more than one if you have to - and you can have your cremation
completely paid for, and it will cost your heirs nothing.

If you JUST let someone take your body, then you have no control. You choose the place it goes NOW - as part of your living will, or as part of a
medical attorney process - however you decide - and you will know exactly.

Choose an individual place, one that takes care of all the expenses. That's the answer to your question. I even gave you a name of a US-wide institution that will take care of everything for you, will not charge you, and, when everything is done, they will cremate your remains and return them to whomever you
choose.

Beth

 

[gleaner1]

Nervously, but with a sense of serenity, and relief. Goodbye cruel world.

 

[greydigger]

Thanks Beth,
I will contact places around here.
Just was wondering what price for the cheapest place anyone knows.
Or even what prices are for this.
Grey