A reader continues last week's thread:
Whenever I read or hear somebody get on their high horse about "assisted suicide", I get so angry. The first thing I want to ask is if they've ever watched anybody they dearly love die over the course of months of agony. I watched my father die from cancer. All I can say is thank god (and I'm agnostic) for hospice care and morphine. While his death was horrible, I can't imagine what his last few months would have been like without them.
And to support what was written about hospice, his doctor gave us instructions for giving him morphine when a hospice worker wasn't there. The last part of the dosing instructions was that we could give him whatever it took to ease the pain. It was made abundantly clear to us that there was no limit. So should my father's family have been prosecuted for murder if one of us gave him a morphine dose that was higher than a level considered dangerous to, say, a basically healthy person with a leg injury? Apparently some think so.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go wipe my eyes.
Another writes:
My grandfather and grandmother had done everything right: completed DNR statements, living wills, and power of attorney for each other to make decisions at the end of life. When my grandfather was in his mid-80s he had a serious fall with head trauma, followed by a series of strokes. As he was transferred through each level of hospitalization – from emergency to ICU to a nursing home – at each move (despite my grandmother having all of the papers organized and presenting them at admissions) the notations in the files did not accurately reflect the DNR wish. My father is a doctor and so was able to more fully understand the medical records and constantly had to reiterate my grandfather’s wish for no heroic measures in order to have the medical orders notated correctly.
At each stage of treatment, my family was asking questions about whether this was potential cure vs. an extension of a non-conscious life. The default was to keep this failing body alive as long as possible.
Our society doesn’t handle the end of life well. Our instinct is to keep bodies going, sometimes beyond a comfortable life. Death is painful and sad; grief is real. But so is watching your 94-year-old grandmother shrivel before you in a nursing home with no enjoyment or quality of life.
It is cruel to say, but we treat our animals better than our families. Anyone who has had an elderly dog in pain – unable to stand, urinating in the house, losing interest in food – knows both the great sadness, but also the relief and the grace, to be able to put the dog to sleep. Family gathered surrounding the pet, alternatively crying and laughing recalling a life well lived, and the pet peacefully and comfortably succumbing to sleep. Why we don’t allow a critically ill patient to express a want to have their life end with the same peace, is beyond me.
The Dish 