dnr

This is a photo of a tattoo that Mary Wohlford, 80, has emblazoned on her chest. Wohlford, of Decorah, Iowa, got the ink in February to hopefully eliminate the possibility of any Terri Schiavo-esque controversy about her medical wishes should she become unable to communicate them directly. From the Des Moines Register (photo by Mary Chind):

If all else fails, if family members can't find her living will or can't face the responsibility of ending life-sustaining measures, she said, then doctors will know her wishes by simply reading the tiny words that are tattooed over her sternum.

"I probably should have had it dated, too," she said.

As it was, the first time she entered Gary's Professional Tattooing Studio, the employee balked, saying he wasn't sure it would be ethical.

"I said, 'OK, but you get these druggies and drunks in here and you do it. Do I look lucid or not?' " she remembered.

The employee still demurred. Shop owner Gary Lietz said he, too, was reluctant, but eventually gave in. Wohlford even talked him into a senior citizen discount.

(from today's boing boing .net)

I admire this woman for sticking to what she wants. I agree that when you get to a point in life where it is only a strain on other people to keep you alive, if you're not enjoying life, just because they love you so much they can't bear to lose you, it makes no sense to waste resources and drag out the inevitable. If anything rediculous ever happens to me, I would wish to move on to a different place, and not live life uncomfortably or unnecessarily, regardless of how badly people want to keep me alive, for moral or conciencious reasons...

y'know...