Your thoughts on dignified dying

[MissHoneychurch]

Last night I watched something on TV about dignified dying. The reportage followed three families and their struggles to do the right for the person who was passing on. There was this one old lady (71) who wanted to die and not having to have a kidney dialysis every 3 days. There was no way she would get better because of it. She said "Let me go. Let me go." She didn't eat or drink anymore. The son wanted to respect her wishes and asked the doctor to stop dialysis. The doctor denied.
My question to you: When do you think it is time to let people go? How come there is this position that no matter how old the people are, how much they decided for themselves to leave this life, there HAS to be life-supporting procedure in the hospital. No matter what. Why don't we have the right to decide to die in situations like that?

[Cyndee_Lou_Who]

1. If the doctor denied wishes of me and or my mother, I'd go to another one.

Wow... this is a heavy topic. Important, but heavy. I agree with you, we should be able to and I THINK can refuse medical treatment.

[MissHoneychurch]

2. here in Germany there is a paper

called living will, where you can state that you don't want any life supporting procedures in cases like that. And where you can put the name of a person to guarantee your wishes if you aren't able to say so yourself.

[WCGreen]

17. We have living wills here in the US that allows for choices

to be respected if someone is in a situation where they can't make there desires known...

As far as dialysis, that is a different story.

First of all, 71 is not that old, especially to someone only 23 years away from that golden age....

Second, the patient could just be in a state of depression. The doctor is right to refuse a request od a patient to, what could legally be construed as, committing suicide...

Here in the states, an over aggressive prosecutor with a political agenda could get a grand jury to indict in this case...

It is a hard choice to make.... When my mother was in the last stages of her cancer, my Step Father and I decided to withhold treatment... She died peacefully with in two days...

Lat summer, I was this close to dying... A choice could have easily been made to pull the plug on me... I am glad no one did....

[MissHoneychurch]

19. I know it is different from case to case

I saw that lady on TV last night, laying in her bed. You could see the dialysis just brought her discomfort. She was whining when they took her to the dialysis. You could see she would never get kind of healthy again. And she was denying food or medicine by just closing her mouth. You could tell she wanted to go.

I don't know your situation last year. I think there was still the possibility that you could recover (what you did after all) and that that was reason not to pull the plug. But if that possibility is out of question, if the result of not pulling the plug would be a vegetative state, then what?

[WCGreen]

20. I now have a living will for that case....

[MissHoneychurch]

21. ok

I just checked the Internet again about the case of that old lady yesterday on TV. The lady was 76, she had 5 strokes already and was feeded and washed by the nurses.

[WCGreen]

22. Okay, that makes a difference

[Bridget Burke]

3. Look into Advance Health Care Directives...

There are legal ways to indicate your wishes about future medical care. Also, who can make the decisions if you are not able to speak up? This is just the first site that popped up:

www.helpguide.org/mental/advance_directive_end_of_life_care.htm

Worth considering, even if you're young & healthy. Remember Terry Schiavo.

[MissHoneychurch]

6. see my reply beforehead

I am starting to think about doing it. Signing a living will. I do have a donor pass though. What use do I have for my organs in case I am brain dead. I rather help other people survive.

[Deja Q]

4. It's up to the individual. Not someone else's spurious morality.

Indeed, if that "moral" person wanted to do himself in, that'd make him a hypocrite for one thing...

This also includes mental illnesses or disabilities. Even depression or benign sociological disorders (autism, et al).

If the person wants to die and there's just cause to show that there is no other way to restore them to a semblence of a reasonable life, let them go.

[jmm]

5. I'm assuming if the doctor denied her request she was in a hospital

I was a family member of hers I would've brought her home so that her wishes could've been respected there. If she was coherent enough to say her wishes she should've been able to sign herself out of the hospital.

[MissHoneychurch]

7. she was in a nursing home

that means her family wasn't able to take care of her at home. And as I saw it she wasn't able to write anymore. She just repeated "Let me go. Leave me alone"

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

8. The Constitution protects one's right to life...

The Constitution also protects one's right to vote, yet it doesn't FORCE you to vote. I don't understand the disparity there.

[khashka]

9. I think everyone has a right to die as much as a right to live

If you are in pain, if you are terminally ill, even if you just don't want to live this life anymore (no one knows what pain others live with and it can't always be fixed)... You have a right to make a choice. It should be legal for a person to make that choice.... to die painlessly, to have their loved ones around them when they go. (Do you know you can be be prosecuted and go to jail if you are there when someone commits suicide and you didn't stop them? So too many people die alone in order protect the people they love.)

If you really care about this issue.... check out the Hemlock Society or their book "Final Exit".

Why don't we have this right? .... because others impose their "morality" on us.

Khash.
(If you haven't done it yet, make out a living will)

[MissHoneychurch]

12. This is how I feel too

here in Germany it is also that you can go to jail if you help someone dying or aren't doing anything to anything to keep them from commiting suicide.

Some years ago my dad was dying due to a brain tumor. There was no way he could survive that. Only thing the docs could have done is postpone the death. I was called as my dad's legal guardian. Of course I didn't decide anything on my own. I spoke with my brother and rest of the family and we decided on not having my father go through any therapy (exposure), no stomach tube. We took him home, took care of him ourselves the last days of his life and were with him when he died. I think we were blessed. After watching the show last night I still am sure we made the right decisions back then.

[khashka]

26. I didn't realize it was so personal

My condolonces on your Dad's death. And all my sympathy for the pain you must have suffered. It's never easy to have someone you love die (I know that from bitter experience). But at least he didn't die alone in a hospital - you made the right decision.

(Could I please encourage everyone to make out a living will and also fill out the form for medical power of attorney NOW! You can download them from the internet.)


Khash.

[LynzM]

28. Khash, I agree

It should be each person's right to control their own body, treatment, lack of treatment, right to fight to live or choose to die as they so wish. I'll have to look up that book you mentioned. Being a diabetic, knowing that nasty stuff is a definite possibility at the end of my life, unless stem-cell research and treatment gets going, a living will is something I'm definitely going to have.

[khashka]

30. I don't have the same problems you do exactly

but we share similar problems. For example. I burned myself very badly without even knowing it had happened. Stuff like that gets infected and you can end up with gangrene. I had a friend who lost both legs because of something like that (she was diabetic).

But a living will isn't enough, Lynz. I urge you strongly to find someone you trust and give them medical power of attorney. (Which only kicks in if you are unable to make medical decisions yourself)

Khash.

[LynzM]

31. Yup, that kind of stuff is scary

Nerve damage is bad stuff... Mostly I try not to think about and dwell on it, but it's always in the back of my mind.

I would certainly be willing to give medical power of attorney to my husband, and will look into it. Thanks for the advice, and a :hug: for you for what you are dealing with, too.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

10. My dad was 89. He had Alzheimer's for about 10 years.

He had a living will: no hydration, no feeding tubes.

When he stopped swallowing, he was still quite "healthy." He could walk, speak, and recognized us. His main deficit was short-term memory. He would look at you and say hi, then turn around and look away. Two seconds later he'd see you and say hi again. It would have been funny had it not been so sad. (Okay, it was still funny)

We honored his living will. It took him 11 days to die. The nursing home people kept him very comfortable with a morphine patch and constant attention. We were able to sit and say goodbye. But it was hard.

[MissHoneychurch]

14. as hard as it was

do you feel like you made the right decision? See my answer to Kash, I wrote about my dad.

He wasn't able anymore to talk or make any decisons. I think we made the right decision. My dad was a brain person. He would have never wanted to live a life where he isn't able to think for himself. I think he knew he was dying and said goodbye to us in the him possible way. Smiling at us, holding out hands. "Demanding" us to be in the room he was in (by wailing when no one was there with him) and us talking about different things, normal things.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

16. Yes, it was the right decision

for all of us. He had been in the nursing home for seven years. His dignity was gone. He was a brilliant man, one of the inventors of high speed film for mammograms. He had few teeth left and he stared at you with his glasses on the tip of his nose and his mouth hanging open. If he had the ability, he would have dispatched himself BY himself, but he didn't.

Had they put in a feeding tube, he could well still be alive today, almost three years later, and he would probably be in severe discomfort, unable to walk, bed sores, etc.

When he died, those 11 days were sacred to us. He would open his eyes and actually "be there." When I heard the discription of R. Reagan's last moments, I recognized that phenomenon. At one point he reached up to my daugther and wiped the tears off her face.

None of us could have survived much more of his long goodbye. I am just so grateful he made the decision himself and I didn't have to do it because I don't know if I have that kind of intestinal fortitude, to make that decision for someone else.

[driver8]

35. My grandmother had Alzheimer's for about 8 years. It was so hard

to see her like that. She and I were extremely close and to have her not recognize me tore me up.

I told my wife that if I am ever diagnosed with Alzheimer's...before I get too bad I want her to give me a bottle of sleeping pills and a big glass of vodka...tuck me in and kiss me goodnight.

[Callalily]

11. I think that decision is up to

the individual. I only hope that I would be brave enough to comply if ever I was asked to assist.

[MissHoneychurch]

15. I am not sure I would be brave enough

to help someone die, but to decide not to do anything anymore yes.

[tyedyeto]

13. This issue should be a part of the Pro-Choice movement

alongside the Roe v. Wade issue. What everyone does with their body should be their own choice and no one should be able to dictate otherwise.

[NMMNG]

18. People should be able to die with dignity

Just because we can prolong life via the use of a dozen different machines doesn't mean we should, particularly when it is against the patient's wishes.

[Arkana]

23. I just finished talking about this in my bioethics class

and my opinion is that the option should always be on the table. Every person has a right to dignity, and if this woman you're talking about wanted to die with dignity then she has a right to do so.

[Tallison]

24. People refuse and MDs stop dialysis treatment all the time

There must have been another part of the story that either you missed or the reporter missed. :shrug:

[Bridget Burke]

29. Correct legal steps must be taken.

The Advance Care Directives mentioned before will communicate the patient's wishes to physicians. But responding to a simple verbal wish might cause an MD to be sued later. Either by relatives who think the deceased should have lived as long as possible, or by relatives who are offended that the next-of-kin stands to inherit--the next of kin who "helped her die." (Yes, these are ugly possibilities.)

There should have been social workers, patient advocates, etc., available to explain all this.

[Tallison]

36. Verbals are perfectly fine if issued by the patient or by the healthcare

power of attorney (which, in the absence of documentation to the contrary, is automatically the next of kin, which goes spouse, parent, oldest child down to youngest, then siblings). Things get ugly when no such family's available to an incapacitated patient, in which case it's up to a judge to appoint a guardian proxy.

Advance directives and healthcare POAs are incredibly straightforward to establish for a mentally competent person, you use the same two-page form, the sigs of two unrelated witnesses. Don't need an attorney, a notary, an MD, nothing.

[MissHoneychurch]

34. I just can say what the showed on the show

the doctor declined talking to the reporter, so I don't know the reason why he/she didn't stop the treatment. And as I mentioned to WCGreen the lady was even in a worse condition than I wrote in my OP. She had 5 strokes and wasn't able to take care of herself anymore.

[Tallison]

37. There must have been contention among the family

wherein there was no advance directive and some family challenged the POA's account of what the patient "would have wanted." Sadly, such contentions usually long preexist the illness of the patient, whose ordeal just provides new battleground on which to play out old hard feelings.

[Patiod]

25. Hospice is a huge help with this

They will fight for your right to deny yourself treatment. They understand - it's their mindset

(and if you want treatment because it reduces pain, they'll go with that option, too)

[Shine]

27. As a Hospice volunteer...

I believe we all have the right to die with dignity.

That said, it is very important for people to make their end-of-life wishes known ahead of time, IN WRITING, so that somebody's else's wishes don't supercede theirs.

It's hard enough on the families to know what to do sometimes, but if things are spelled out ahead of time, it really helps.

Shine

[pitohui]

32. there is profit in torturing the old lady

the doctor and the hospital's right to profit trumps her right not to be tortured, that's what it means to live in a capitalist society

individuals have never had a right to die, indeed, suicide used to be illegal even in america

i don't think it's right or fair but it won't change because there's profit in prolonging the torment

[Left_Winger]

33. If a person is terminally ill

and they choose to end their own life, then they should have that right.

My mother died of ovarian cancer fourteen years ago. Two weeks before she died we were told there was nothing else that could be done for her. The doctors medicated her on morphine (MC Contin was the actual drug) until she passed on. Basically, the decision was to keep her zoned out (i.e. totally unconscious) on drugs until she passed away.

If I were ever in that position (or just prior to being there), I'm going to swallow the entire bottle of pills the moment someone turns their back and put a quick and painless end to it all.

[maveric]

38. I'm a nurse in a sub-acute unit and have seen too many patients

kept alive, many against their wishes, by family members. These people are in pain and prone to pneumonia ad other infections that ravage them.