Great-grandma tattoos "DO NOT RESUSCITATE" on her chest

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From http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060516/LIFE02/605160389/

Woman hopes tattoo sparks discussions about health crises

REGISTER STAFF WRITER

May 16, 2006

Decorah, Ia. — Eighty-year-old Mary Wohlford has informed family members of her wishes should she ever become incapacitated. She also has signed a living will that hangs on the side of her refrigerator.

But the retired nurse and great-grandmother now believes she has removed all potential for confusion.

She had the words "DO NOT RESUSCITATE" tattooed on her chest.

Really.

"People might think I'm crazy, but that's OK," Wohlford said. "Sometimes the nuttiest ideas are the most advanced."

Medical and legal experts expressed doubts that Wohlford's tattoo would prove binding, either in the emergency room or in the courts, but they give her credit for originality.

"I'll be darned," said Bob Cowie, a Decorah lawyer and chairman of the Iowa Bar Association's probate and trust law section. He added, "There are easier ways to do it than that," such as signing a living will or authorizing a medical power of attorney.

Said Wohlford: "I don't believe in lawyers too much."

Wohlford said she is healthy; in fact, she cares part-time for two other women. She said her decision to enter a Galena, Ill., tattoo parlor in February was the culmination of what she witnessed during her almost 30 years in nursing and during the Terri Schiavo controversy last year.

Schiavo was the Florida woman who collapsed in 1990 and never recovered. She died in April 2005 after a judge ordered her feeding tube removed.

The case divided her family and the country.

Wohlford said she does not want something like that to happen to her.

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.

"Ultimately, it was her decision," Lietz said. "She's a tough old cookie."

The widowed Wohlford has eight daughters, 17 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. She has traveled to six of the seven continents as a volunteer with Medical Ministry International. Last October, she spent three weeks in Louisiana working with the American Red Cross to help Hurricane Katrina victims.

Back home, she still mows her own yard and cleans her own swimming pool. (By the way, she notes that the top of her swimming suit will fully hide the tattoo.)

"She's always been a maverick," said her daughter, Mary Pat Wohlford-Wessels, assistant dean of the medical school at Des Moines University.

Wohlford-Wessels said she failed to talk her mother out of getting the tattoo.

"She said, 'Remember all those times when you were a teenager, and I said don't do this, that or the other thing? Paybacks are tough, aren't they?' "

Mary Wohlford said she knows people might find her tattoo amusing, but her motive is serious. She'd like people, especially young people, to consider what might happen if their wishes are unclear.

"This is a modern day and age," she said. "You have to advance with the times. We never even had a living will 20 years ago. Now I think we've got to go to the next step."

For Wohlford, the tattoo represents the next step. Nobody can lose it or claim to forget what she wanted. She said this would solve the problem of what would happen should she become incapacitated in another country.

If Terri Schiavo had a "Do Not Resuscitate" tattoo, Wohlford said, "then her husband could have said, 'See, it's right here. This is what she wanted.' But she verbalized it, so they had this big rigmarole."

Would Wohlford's tattoo stop an Iowa doctor from resuscitating her?

"According to Iowa law, the answer is no," said Dr. Mark Purtle, who works in internal medicine at Iowa Methodist Medical Center.

He said Iowa law spells out when caregivers are permitted not to resuscitate a patient, and a tattoo wouldn't be good enough. He suggests a living will or an advanced directive, with a copy placed in the patient's medical chart, as well as discussing your wishes with trusted family members.

Lawyers agreed with Purtle.

"Just having that tattooed on your chest and doing nothing more, I'm not sure that's going to do you much good," said William Bump of Stuart, who has expertise in living wills and estate matters.

In addition to a living will, Cowie said, another approach is to authorize someone who can make decisions for you using what's called a medical power of attorney. If traveling, place a copy with your airplane tickets, he said.

Cowie said some clients have their living will or medical power of attorney form reduced in size and laminated, then carry it in a wallet.

On one issue, the experts are unanimous: If Wohlford's tattoo gets more people thinking about what they want done in a health crisis, they're all for it.

That's Wohlford's wish as well.

"At least it gives them my feeling on the situation, so they have a guideline of what I'm thinking. Then they can work from there. Everyone needs to think about this," she said.

Wohlford has no regrets about getting her tattoo "it felt kind of like a bee sting" and proposed an offer to Lietz, the shop owner.

"I told Gary I'd bring a busload of old ladies over if he'd give me a 10 percent cut."