I recently came across this short poem on Twitter; it was written by a 99-year-old woman, a former nurse herself. I thought it was so wonderful that I’ve now used it several times to introduce my talks about late-life care and advance care planning. Since people have been requesting copies, I thought I’d share it here. What do you think?

Meeting the Registrar

As I would like to leave at ease

No intravenous feeding please

No pump imparting partial life

No last ditch using of the knife

When coma comes just let me slide

Unhindered to the other side

I want no plastic tubes to mar

My meeting with the registrar