My Experience with COVID: Four Estate Planning Lessons Learned
By Amy Privette (guest post)
In my estate planning practice, I use true stories to illustrate the consequences of certain decisions being discussed in the planning process. I tell clients all the time how important it is to learn from other people’s experiences.
So let me tell you a story about a 42-year-old lawyer and her 72-year-old mother who got COVID within days of each other in January. The dark cloud is that we got sick, but the silver lining is we can find some valuable estate planning lessons in the experience.
Here are four lessons learned, applicable during a pandemic and beyond:
#1: There Are No Guarantees in Life
My mother and I followed all guidelines. We canceled vacations. We stayed home. We wore masks. We washed our hands. We carried hand sanitizer with us everywhere we went and used it before, during, and after any public experience. We stayed six feet apart. We stopped shaking hands and exchanging hugs. We wiped down every surface routinely. And we got COVID.
We are proof that you can do everything right and still get sick.
Life is unpredictable. COVID has driven that point home for all of us. Think back to February of last year. Kids were in school. Employees were commuting to work every day. All of us were blissfully ignorant of how dramatically life would change in a few short weeks. We had no idea what was lurking just around the corner.
Control is an illusion. You can eat your veggies, take your vitamins, get 8 hours of sleep every night, exercise routinely … and all it takes is one person to run a stop sign and your world is forever changed.
There are no guarantees in life. Just when you think you have it all figured out, life throws you a curveball.
#2: Don’t Delay, Plan Now
My mother and I were tested for COVID on a Wednesday. At the time of testing—before we even knew she was positive—my mother was told to go straight to the ER because her oxygen saturation level was unsatisfactory. Unfortunately my mother sat in the ER waiting room for over 6 hours that day and never got seen. Exhausted from the ordeal, she left the ER and came home. By early Friday morning, we had to call 911, and she was immediately hospitalized. By Sunday, I was also taken by ambulance to the ER.
For both of us, our health declined rapidly. Thankfully, we each already had advanced health care directives because there was no time to plan at that point. The time between COVID testing to hospitalization was less than 48 hours for my mother. There is not a whole lot of good planning that can be done in that short timeframe.
Life will always be busy. To borrow from the scriptures, COVID is no respecter of persons. COVID doesn’t care about your relationship status, the age of your kids, or the size of your investment portfolio. You could say the same thing about any number of diseases or illnesses.
If you put off planning until there is a medical emergency, it is too late. The natural heightened emotions of an emergency combined with the frantic rush to get something, anything, in place means judgment is clouded, and that is a recipe for mistakes.
Plan now. Tomorrow can be too late.
#3: Conversation is Key
The Friday morning when the paramedics came for my mother is still a bit of a blur. But I remember watching three strangers come into the house, decked out head-to-toe in protective equipment, looking like they stepped out of some bizarre space movie. One peppered me with questions while the other two checked my mom’s vitals and evaluated her overall state. Almost as soon as they swept into the house, they swept back out again, with my mom on a gurney (she wasn’t strong enough to walk). I was left alone in the unsettling quiet aftermath.
The emotion of that moment, not knowing when I might next see her, was overwhelming. Experiencing it barely a year after my father’s death was crushing. Trying to manage those emotions while also being sick myself was impossible.
Now, imagine that—on top of navigating all these emotions—I am being asked to make life or death decisions about my mother’s health care. Thankfully, it never got to that point for us, but many people have a different story. This is why you need to have conversations with your Health Care Agent (the person you task with making health care decisions for you in the event you cannot make them for yourself) about what you would or would not want done for you in a life-threatening situation.
When my mother was being loaded into the back of the ambulance, part of me would have agreed to anything and everything someone would have offered me as a lifeline for her. But that’s not really the job of the Health Care Agent. The Health Care Agent’s job is not to insert his or her own personal wishes or beliefs into the decision-making.
The job of the Health Care Agent is to be the voice of the patient, to make decisions based solely on what the patient would want. How can your Health Care Agent make decisions based on what you want if you have never expressed to them what you want?
The greatest gift you can give your Health Care Agent is conversation. Talk with them while you are happy and healthy and life is good. These conversations will be the foundation your agent relies upon when emotions are high and decisions are difficult. End the conversation with these words:
“I love you. I trust you. Whatever choice you make for me, it is okay.”
#4: Always Have a Plan B
One of the hardest parts of our journey with COVID was the fact that my mother and I were sick at the same time. Even though I am my mother’s Health Care Agent and she is mine, we battled COVID at the same time and neither one of us was in a position to be making important decisions for the other. Having back-ups named in our legal documents, people who could take over the agent role for each of us and who had the authority to communicate with the doctors and nurses responsible for our care, was crucial.
Even outside of COVID, I counsel clients all the time not to put all their eggs in one basket. Yes, your husband or your wife might be the best person to make decisions for you if you cannot make them for yourself. But what if your spouse is lying in the hospital bed right next to you? You need to have a Plan B. No one wants to think of tragedy striking their family but, as hard as it is, planning for contingencies is key to a comprehensive estate plan.
One day this pandemic will end, but tomorrow is not promised to any of us. I encourage you to learn the lessons from my story and take the time to plan now for your well-being and your family’s future.
Amy Privette is an estate attorney and owner of Privette Legacy Planning in Cary, NC. Learn more at https://www.leavealegacync.com/.
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