The Book

I'll Have it my Way:
Taking Control of End-of-Life Decisions
Since the first emergency 911 telephone call was placed on Friday, February 16, 1968 the natural act of dying has, year-by-year, shifted from being an understood and predictable process managed by a family doctor with support from family and friends into a high-tech, high-speed, multi-machine, multi-doctor impersonal series of events that might not let us die for years and leaves us vulnerable and often voiceless. My mom barely escaped a protracted experience and she is the reason I have written this book.
I'll Have it my Way is a tool for patients and their families to minimize, if not avoid entirely the pain, suffering, confusion and disagreements that can arise when their end-of-life healthcare wishes are not clearly spelled out and known in advance. The book makes it clear that no one is required to passively delegate death to a system that insists upon surgery, stents, chemotherapy, blood transfusions, radiation, infusions and all of the tubes, bags and lines which accompany these interventions.