Posted on 01/31/2017 12:46:34 PM PST by servo1969
Last week, my two stepsons' father, a man who loved life, killed himself.
I would like to tell you why.
Two years ago, a 62-year-old father of three named Bruce Graham was standing on an ladder, inspecting his roof for a leak, when it slipped out from under him. He landed on top of the ladder on his back, breaking several ribs, puncturing a lung and tearing his intestine, which wasn't detected until he went into septic shock. Following surgery, he lapsed into a two-week coma.
In retrospect, it's unfortunate that he awoke from that coma because for all intents and purposes, his life ended with that fall. Not because his mind was affected -- it was completely intact until the moment he took his life -- but because while modern medicine was adept enough to keep him alive, it was unable or unwilling to help him deal with the excruciating pain that he experienced over the next two years. And life in constant excruciating pain with no hope of ever alleviating it is not worth living.
As a result of the surgery, Bruce developed abdominal scar tissue structures known as adhesions. Adhesions can be horribly painful, but they are difficult to diagnose because they don't appear in imaging, and no surgery in America or in Mexico (where, out of desperation, he also sought treatment) could remove them permanently. Many doctors dismiss adhesions, regarding the patient's pain as psychosomatic.
The pain prevented him from getting adequate sleep. And he could not eat without the pain spiking for hours. By the time of his death, he had lost almost half his body weight.
Prescription painkillers -- opioids -- relieved much of his pain, or at least kept it to a tolerable level. But after the initial recuperation period, no doctor would prescribe one, despite the fact that this man had a well-documented injury and no record of addiction to any drug, including opioids. Doctors either wouldn't prescribe them on an ongoing basis due to the threat of losing their medical license or being held legally liable for addiction or overdose, or deemed Bruce a hypochondriac.
The federal government and states like California have made it extremely difficult for physicians to prescribe painkillers for an extended period of time. The medical establishment and government bureaucrats have decided that it is better to allow people to suffer terrible pain than to risk them becoming addicted to opioids.
They believe it is better to allow any number of innocent people to suffer hideous pain for the rest of their lives than to risk any patient getting addicted and potentially dying from an overdose.
Dr. Stephen Marmer, who teaches psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, told me that he treated children with terminal cancer when he was an intern, and even they were denied painkillers, lest they become addicted.
Pain management seems to be the Achilles' heel of modern medicine, for philosophical reasons as well as medical. Remarkably, Dr. Thomas Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wrote in The New England Journal of Medicine last year, "Whereas the benefits of opioids for chronic pain remain uncertain, the risks of addiction and overdose are clear."
To most of us, this is cruel. Isn't the chance of accidental death from overdose, while in the meantime allowing patients to have some level of comfort, preferable to a life of endless severe pain?
Though I oppose suicide on religious/moral grounds and because of the emotional toll it takes on loved ones, I make an exception for people with unremitting, terrible pain. If that pain could be alleviated by painkilling medicines, and law and/or physicians deny them those medicines, it is they, not the suicide, who are morally guilty.
Bruce was ultimately treated by the system as an addict, not worthy of compassion or dignity. On the last morning of his life, after what was surely a long, lonely, horrific night of sleeplessness and agony, Bruce made two calls, two final attempts to acquire the painkillers he needed to get through another day. Neither friend could help him. Desperate to end the pain, he picked up a gun, pressed it to his chest and pulled the trigger. In a final noble act, he did not shoot himself in the head, even though that is the more certain way of dying immediately. He had told a friend some weeks earlier that if he were to take his life, he wouldn't want loved ones to experience the trauma-inducing mess that shooting himself in the head would leave. Instead, he shot himself in the heart.
An autopsy confirmed the presence of abdominal adhesions, as well as significant arthritis in his spine.
May Bruce Graham rest in peace. Some of us, however, will not live in peace until physicians' attitudes and the laws change.
Wow!
So sorry to hear of your loss. Too bad THC isn’t legal in most states. Works good for pain among other health problems, is less expensive, and by itself no overdose deaths. But the pharmaceutical industry lobbies against it.
Had Prager's relative had access to the pain killers he needed without having to face the complications he apparently did in obtaining them, it appears from Prager's account that it is more likely that his relative would not have chosen to take his life.
Respectfully, while I am sorry for your loss, Oxycontin, like any other drug product approved by FDA for marketing, is safe and effective when prescribed as used, as labeled.
FReegards!
Thank you for posting this. A close family friend died of an opioid addiction. She had suffered a severe neck injury in a car accident. She had multiple surgeries, but was left with chronic pain. For five years, her physicians prescribed opioids to relieve her pain, but cut her off once they realized she’d become addicted. Her life really spiraled out of control after that. She started buying oxy, or something like oxy, off the street. She could no longer maintain her job as a bank manager, and was fired. She was a full-time junkie for the next few years, losing her home, her car, much of her hearing, and several teeth. She moved in with her mother, and died of an overdose on her 33rd birthday.
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His age is irrelevent.
It could have happened at any age, and I suspect is more likely among younger, less experienced people.
Medical malpractice rules supreme in surgery.
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It’s called knowing your patient...sadly, the system today takes more and more time away from the doctor/patient relationship due to the endless bureaucratic paperwork. Yes, KNOW your patient.
Totally different circumstances. Hopefully you will never experience constant excruciating pain and be denied any relief. Drugs that are given t0 deal with pain management may not seem necessary to you, but they indeed are when certain situations call for them.
It has been so long since the concept of redemptive suffering has been taught from the pulpit that it can almost be regarded as a lost concept.
I have little sympathy for someone who gets themselves addicted to recreational drugs, however, if they decide they want help, I’m all in.
On the other had, I have a huge amount of sympathy for those who develop an addiction to prescription medications for pain.
In a case like this guy, I say give him whatever he wants. (after all other means have failed of course)
I agree!
That’s quite a story. Blessings to you too, and I hope the Lord’s grace is with you to comfort you daily.
(we all need a little grace from time to time when life is tough & painful. It’s said what the article’s subject had to go through)
God does have mercy. Even for those who take there own lives.
I was raised Catholic. It wasn’t until adulthood that I began to actually read the Bible beyond the snippets we’d get at Mass. One of the things I was surprised to learn was not in it is the phrase “God never gives you more than you can handle.”
That phrase isn’t in there because sometimes he does. I would never post as you did and basically say that “any true Catholic Christian” would just tough it out and not even consider the option. Life is a very different journey for each of us, and I would never presume to judge someone who was driven over the edge. You haven’t walked in his shoes or my shoes and I haven’t walked in yours.
better yet buy gutter guards so no one has to clean the gutters.
The Father KNOWS our heart. Suicide is not unforgivable as a sin. What IS unforgivable is knowing the Truth, accepting Salvation, then denying Christ when you are asked to Witness. In the Bible, that is the only unforgivable sin I have read of.
It’s not worth checking your roof if the ground isn’t dry.
It's made in 500/5 mg and 325/5 mg.
I would never condemn him or judge him. That’s God’s job.
I am only offering it as a help to those who are suffering here and now and are losing hope. You can do something with your suffering, which already begins to make it bearable.
If you have objections to the Catholic approach, then read Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”. He essentially says the same thing....our suffering can be used for others.
I know you're not kidding, and I second that! Please, people, unless you are a trained construction worker, painter, or the like, stay off ladders that are higher than a low step stool. I know several people who died or sustained life-altering injuries when they fell off ladders while painting, cleaning gutters, retrieving something from what seemed a low(ish) roof. It is just not worth the risk.
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