X-Message-Number: 19018
From: 
Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 11:12:08 EDT
Subject: managing dying

Recently Dr. Haftka asked about statistics concerning our patients and their 
post-mortem experiences. CI is still in the process of updating and 
automating our databases of several kinds, and there is no quick or easy way 
to summarize this information at the moment, and it isn't a high priority 
because it just would not be very helpful.

The point is that the various kinds of risks are well known, as are most of 
the available measures to mitigate these risks, and knowing who has done 
what, or failed to do it, in the past just isn't particularly helpful.

You want to die, if possible, under hospice care and with cryonics or 
cryonics-trained people either on the spot or quickly available. 

Even better, in some cases, would be to commit suicide, without assistance, 
in states where that is legal, by prior arrangement with the medical 
examiner, with a representative of the M.E. on hand to pronounce death and 
the cryonics team on the spot--but that is unlikely to be feasible very often 
in the near future. 

In any case, you want to make sure, to the extent possible, that someone 
knowledgeable and sympathetic will be aware of your impending death, or 
quickly aware that you have died. Your physician and hospital should know of 
your arrangements, and the hospital should have on file your whole-body 
anatomical gift form and your durable power of attorney for health care, 
which includes naming a representative to make post-mortem decisions.

If you live alone you should at least carry a cell phone or/and a panic 
button, and one of the newer vital-function-alarm gadgets when you are ready 
for that.

And of course you must have complete, formal arrangements with a cryonics 
organization, and preferably also with a local mortician.

That's about the size of it. And don't eat fried foods.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
www.cryonics.org

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