Reply #107: My grandmother, in good health otherwise, found out at 84

[Longhorn]

that she had a tumor. She refused to go through any more tests to confirm that it was cancer because she said it wouldn't matter, she was NOT going through chemotherapy or any other type of treatment. She said she had witnessed too many friends, including my grandfather, suffer through those treatments and that's not how she wanted to spend her last days. (She also never had a mammogram in her life because she said, "Women who have mammograms find out they have cancer." :shrug:

Several family members took turns flying up to Indiana (from Texas) to help care for her, assisted by the wonderful hospice people who tried to keep her suffering to a minimum. She was increasingly delirious and on morphine the last couple of weeks and then began to shut down. I joined my mother on what turned out to be the last trip. My grandmother had been comatose the last couple of days but she woke up on her 85th birthday and even sat up and let me hold her on her bed. My mother told her it was her birthday and my grandmother replied, "I know." She went back to sleep and died that evening with my mother and I holding her hands.

I can't imagine a more dignified death. My mother and I even commented on the "circle of life" -- my grandmother was born at home, as was my mother, and here were three generations of women sharing this most personal and profound event. I can't imagine what it would have been like if my mother and her brothers had pressured my grandmother to opt for harsh medical intervention. Her life might have been prolonged but at what sacrifice in quality?

Of course, the bottom line is, she died the way SHE wanted to.