Day 17 – “Getting the Affairs in Order”

We often read or hear about people who are told by their doctors to get their “affairs in order”.

Thankfully this advice has not come from my doctors but as I could be sick for quite a while Jan and I have taken a few moments at an appropriate times in the last couple of weeks to review our situation.

I guess I have now been run over by my “bus” that everyone hopes will not strike them but as we all know it could be just around the corner! Live every day like it might be your last would be a great motto (within consideration for all those family men!)

Ever since we married and had children we have always kept Wills and these have been updated from time to time most recently with the help of the wonderful Tammy Holzheimer at Commins Hendriks.

A simple thing, but it is amazing how quickly things change with children growing up etc whereby your current Will does not really stack up too well.  We last updated our Wills in 2014 and a quick read with Tammy revealed all was still in order.

Next to be reviewed were the Enduring Guardianship and Power of Attorney documents.  The Enduring Guardianship document gives Jan the power to make medical and lifestyle choices for me if I am unable while the Power of Attorney is more about making business decisions on my behalf if I do not have the capacity.

We also touched on the bigger discussions re death and what life might look like in the future for Jan.  Although we spent some time on this I won’t go into too much detail as at this stage my condition is not considered to require urgent attention in this area.

The final thing was a string of discussions with our Melbourne Lawyer, Rob Jeremiah of Sladen Legal.

Rob has helped us set up family trusts and the like over the years and is a guru in the area of protecting assets and ensuring that they are passed on down the family line.

We discussed the notion of bringing the children into the mix.  His first question was “Will they be hostile?”  I think he had visions of Gina Rinehart’s very public battle with her children over family assets.

Having allayed any fears about our family’s relationships we agreed to restructure our family trusts to give us a little more flexibility going forward.

As for my day in hospital, pretty much a repeat of yesterday with a high temp and more drugs and one bag of platelets and two bags of red blood cells (Lance eat your heart out).

Another thing on the agenda was a body CT Scan looking for signs of infection and excessive fluid that might be contributing to the high body temps.  This took up most of the afternoon.

Oh and a special visit from my older brother Tony who had flown in from Canberra for the day.  We chatted about general matters and I gave him an overview of where I am up to.  I think he was originally shocked at how sick I looked but after a bag of blood, a shower and a shave I had perked up somewhat which allowed him to leave with a more positive picture of me in his mind.