DearHHN,

I just finished your wonderful article ["Memories Are Made of This" by Marilyn D. Harris, April 2007 issue] and have to share how your work impacted my life. In December 1990 I married a widower 25 years my senior. I brought teenagers into his life, and he brought a bedridden 96-year-old into mine-his first wife's mother. We considered it a fair trade.

Three years later, while he was in Oklahoma moving his 95-year-old mother to an assisted-living facility, his mother-in-law died. The previous summer, following her hospitalization for pneumonia, we'd discussed future treatment plans with her physician. (She'd been carried out of the house screaming by paramedics. I was sure she'd have a heart attack. After a week on antibiotics, she returned to her own bed.) The doctor backed us in our decision not to repeat such a scenario and said that she would sign off on a death certificate without Ann being taken to the hospital when the time came.

Unfortunately, she was not on call the Sunday morning Ann died. The physician on call, who had actually been Ann's original physician, refused to sign off on an unseen patient. He called 911.

The emergency medical technicians (EMTs) arrived, accompanied by two police cars, one with a barking dog. I explained what had happened and suggested that hauling her body off to a hospital was a waste of township and hospital personnel's time and taxpayers' money. They called the doctor back, but he insisted that she be taken to the hospital. The EMTs were kind enough to call the county coroner to see if he would sign off on the death, but he, too, refused.

Meanwhile I was being grilled by the police on her medical history and my relationship to the deceased. They insisted on having a familial relationship listed on their paperwork. I finally said that I was her "step daughter-in-law."

By this time, the EMTs had finished talking to the coroner. They said that if I could get an MD to come to the house, they would leave. Meanwhile, the funeral director had arrived because I called him after I got off the phone with the doctor. I asked the EMTs if specialty would be an issue and they said no, as long as the physician was licensed in the state. The only physician I knew in the neighborhood at that point was an ophthalmology resident at a local hospital. Since I was the hospital's librarian, I had no qualms about calling him and asking him for a big favor.

He came right over, showed the EMTs his license, and pronounced Ann dead. The EMTs and the police took off, leaving us with the funeral director. The funeral director asked my colleague about a death certificate, which is not something routinely carried in an ophthalmologist's little black bag. Fortunately the funeral director had one in his van.

Fast forward to 2002, and we find out that my husband has glioblastoma multiforme. We became patients of Abington Memorial Hospital Home Care and Hospice (AMH). The first question I asked was about pronouncing Harrison dead when the time came. Our nurse assured me that once she talked with our physician, who was not an AMH staff member, she could pronounce Harrison dead and arrange with the funeral director for the death certificate and body removal. And, indeed, that is exactly what happened. She arrived for her daily visit about half an hour after Harrison died, and she called the funeral director for me.

Little did I know then that I would actually get to know someone who was instrumental in enacting the law that made my second experience with moving a dead body out of the house much, much easier. So, 5 years late, I give you my heartfelt thanks for your contribution to making Harrison's death a better scenario than it could have been.

When I retire I plan to volunteer with the AMH hospice.