Seminar offers reassuring path

It’s a nightmare come to life.

Getting diagnosed with cancer or another life-threatening condition, or watching a loved one go through the same thing.

Besides the obvious and important worries – treatment options, caring for a family, possible death – there are so many other complicated things to consider:

Will I be able to keep working?

If I can’t, how will I pay the rent?

How do I navigate my insurance benefits?

Should I write a will?

How do I make my end-of life wishes known?

“The most important thing is to get into your support group or know where to turn,” says Joan Tierney, a Seattle attorney and immediate past president of the Washington Women Lawyers.

Tierney was the lead editor of a recently published manual, the Breast Cancer Legal Resource Guide, a free, downloadable source of information on a variety of legal topics for cancer patients and others.

Legal issues and cancer will be the topic of a seminar Thursday at Gonzaga University. The seminar, which is open to the public as well as to lawyers, will focus on landlord-tenant issues, employment concerns, estate planning and end-of-life documents.

People who’ve never thought about preparing a will or writing out their last wishes often decide to do so when they face a serious disease, says Karen Sayre, a Spokane attorney concentrating in elder law who will be speaking at the seminar.

“When you actually get diagnosed, it tends to be that triggering event,” Sayre says. “All of a sudden, when they’re diagnosed with what could be a terminal illness, most people respond, sometimes not immediately. And then all of a sudden they will take a turn for the worst, things will move faster than expected.”

Attorneys can face ethical dilemmas when they are called by a family member of a relative too ill to make the call themselves, Sayre says.

“Is that my client? Is mom my client?” she says. “I can’t represent a client and give legal advice to a client’s children.”