When I thought my husband might die the next day...
We've been working on "getting our affairs in order" for a really long time. Even before I was diagnosed with cancer, we had our legal documents done. We've got wills, revocable trusts, powers of attorney, health care proxies... all that is in good order. We know where all our assets are on an up-to-date(ish) balance sheet. We use Lastpass for passwords and have the paid version that has a "dead man switch" where our appointed representative can ask for access, Lastpass sends us an email saying to refuse it if we don't want to give them access, and then after we don't refuse it for some set period the representative gets access. I've got some business continuity procedures in place. We're GOOD at this.
But the days before my husband was going in for quadruple bypass surgery I found myself with a new set of things to solve.
Which funeral home? There are four in town, who would I use? I've never thought that far. I asked some friends and one had a ringing endorsement of the one I was already inclined to go with, so that settled that.
Who would drive with me to the hospital if the call I got from the surgeon went badly? I checked with a few friends and some were willing but it wasn't convenient. I asked my minister and she was willing and it felt really appropriate, so that's who I texted when we got good news and I started driving myself.
What chores did my husband do around the house that I didn't know details about? I grilled him about what repairmen he used for the snowblower, where he submits the solar power meter numbers to so we get our SREC income, and a few other chores around the house that only he does. I had already started a "house manual" for HIM of stuff that only I knew, now I added to it.
Our house manual has sections for contractors we use, utility information (billing info, etc), maintenance history (when the last time something was done) , a list of seasonal chores, and the history of the house (as we were told and as we've added to it.) It's a google doc shared with the whole family.
The main task I had to do was to find someone to take over his winter chore of snowblowing the driveway and sidewalks. We live in a large corner lot with sidewalks galore, including three separate entrances to the house that need to be separately shoveled. It's a big task. I decided I couldn't handle the enormity of my husband having life-threatening surgery, but I could handle the task oif finding a snowplow guy. We managed to do it and I felt very relieved, grateful and accomplished.
Have you been surprised about what tasks you found undone?
But the days before my husband was going in for quadruple bypass surgery I found myself with a new set of things to solve.
Which funeral home? There are four in town, who would I use? I've never thought that far. I asked some friends and one had a ringing endorsement of the one I was already inclined to go with, so that settled that.
Who would drive with me to the hospital if the call I got from the surgeon went badly? I checked with a few friends and some were willing but it wasn't convenient. I asked my minister and she was willing and it felt really appropriate, so that's who I texted when we got good news and I started driving myself.
What chores did my husband do around the house that I didn't know details about? I grilled him about what repairmen he used for the snowblower, where he submits the solar power meter numbers to so we get our SREC income, and a few other chores around the house that only he does. I had already started a "house manual" for HIM of stuff that only I knew, now I added to it.
Our house manual has sections for contractors we use, utility information (billing info, etc), maintenance history (when the last time something was done) , a list of seasonal chores, and the history of the house (as we were told and as we've added to it.) It's a google doc shared with the whole family.
The main task I had to do was to find someone to take over his winter chore of snowblowing the driveway and sidewalks. We live in a large corner lot with sidewalks galore, including three separate entrances to the house that need to be separately shoveled. It's a big task. I decided I couldn't handle the enormity of my husband having life-threatening surgery, but I could handle the task oif finding a snowplow guy. We managed to do it and I felt very relieved, grateful and accomplished.
Have you been surprised about what tasks you found undone?