What would you do if you honestly did not trust anyone in your immediate family to be your POA?
It's sad for me to admit this, but, no one in the family is any good with finances. I'm not that good, but I'm "it" because everyone else is so much worse. My son might get to that point someday, but hubby is a zero at math or business skills (we are still working on what was once about 35k in debt to prove it) and daughter would blow anything she could get her hands on on cigarrettes and junk. And medical decisions - well, maybe daughter would do well, but again hubby is a zero with regards to anything medical and would just do whatever the last person he talked to advised, does a really bad job of risk-benefit evaluation or even reporting symptoms accurately, and my son just does not get what my values might be or how they might differ from his. Where else would you turn?
And then, there's the idea that having a POA or being an Administrator of an estate/will is no walk in the park ... even for relatively healthy people.
In my case, I have no estate, there's nothing to distribute (more like donate to some worthy cause). Maybe it's best if I simply draw up a will (or whatever is correct) to specify my wishes and let the state take over. If I'm not capable of making a decision, I really don't care. Hahahah .. maybe I'll run an ad in Craig's List and see if anyone is crazy enough to volunteer.
It breaks my heart to read your family dynamics - but I'm in the same boat. Guess what - we're 3 for 3.
And, I recently heard a Death & Dying discussion on the local Senior Center Without Walls, where a woman talked about her having broken her femur, spent time in a rehab clinic before homecare - and thru it all realized her daughter "did & said everything wrong - so didn't want her daughter doing anymore caregiving". Ha. There's more of this going on than meets the eye.
America is said to be a caring/compassionate nation - but I think people have gotten too selfish, and "lost it".
Maybe the 3 of us should look after each other.
Sure wish you had spell checj, (-;
{Begins her search for vials of insulin}
After my mother-in-law died and we saw how my husband's sibs wanted to handle things during her final illness, we went to our attorney and had very specific advance directives drawn up. Our doctors all have copies, as does the local hospital. We also had very specific wills created, with separate lists of bequests which are stored with the wills. We did not want to leave anything to chance, after seeing how some family members swoop in like vultures to scoop up anything of value.
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@vstefans - Look into appointing a trust company as your PoA, perhaps as co-PoA. There are trust companies that specialize in exactly this for exactly this reason. They can keep an eye on finances and limit the damage your family can do. But you must discuss this in-depth with your lawyer, to make sure everything is written up to reflect your wishes.