Get your sh*t together

Caris again. I thought I would write about one thing we've done since coming home from the first hospital visit that has brought me, personally, a lot of peace of mind. I suspect Bill feels similarly.

Being a young-ish childless couple in our 30s, we don't have a lot of responsibilities or liabilities. Hooray! Lucky us.

When we found out was was going on in Bill's brain, I immediately emailed my friend, Melissa, of the Karisch law firm here in Austin. Melissa is an attorney that works in estate planning and all the legal stuff around that. 

Melissa gave us some advice on what kinds of documents we should put into place if Bill was going to be whisked into surgery. Things like:

1. Wills
2. Powers of attorney of various kinds (medical, financial, statutory...)
3. Advance directives
4. Declaration of guardian in case one of us is incapacitated
5. HIPAA authorization so that we can see each others' medical info

Some of this may or may not have defaulted to what we wanted since we are fortunate enough to already be married, but we covered all our bases to be extra careful. 

These are documents we may need to update as our situation changes. If we had kids, we might have needed to spend more time on things like our Wills, but for now, what we've got will hold us for awhile.

If anyone out there is thinking to themselves, "Oh crap, I totally need to do this," they should visit GetYourShitTogether.org and/or contact their favorite local estate attorney. I can highly recommend our friends at Karisch if you live in Austin, as they have been super helpful, fast, and kind.