Prager: Why My Stepsons’ Father Killed Himself

Truthrevolt.org ^ | 1-31-2017 | Dennis Prager

[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.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Suicide is a mortal sin under the condition that the person knows that the act is a sin and, in his right mind and in control of his faculties, deliberately chooses it anyway,

Chronic severe pain causes depression, panic/anxiety states and all sorts of brain function changes. I think it’s charitable and just to assume that this unfortunate suffering man was being “pushed” by the pathology of sin.

If so, he would not be fully morally responsible for his act.

We must pray for his soul. He is in the hands of his merciful Maker, a being supremely just and kind..

[Yaelle]

I doubt it. His wife, who btw is a wonderful person, converted to Judaism when they married.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I meant to type:

"Pushed by the pathology of PAIN."

My point was that you cannot "assume" the whole subjective weight of mortal sin in cases like this. Pray for this man.

[Crucial]

I feel sorry for this guy. Medicine has come a long way but has a long way to go. I’m sure Obama’s tax on medical devices didn’t help research and development of imaging technology.

[Crucial]

Another reason not to live in liberal Kalifornia...

[Agamemnon]

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.

Peter, who correctly identified Jesus Christ as the Son of God denied Christ three successive times after Jesus was arrested. Jesus certainly forgave him when He appeared to Peter after He arose.

Christians unfortunately and too often live and behave in ways that deny Christ by their words and actions. Forgiveness is extended to them as they request it of Christ, because "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." (1 John 1:9). It is His promise to us.

The unforgivable sin of denying Christ is applicable to the one who refuses Christ as Savior.

FReegards!

[Liz]

Great point.

[Crucial]

Well, people who have undergone traumatic injury and surgery should be placed at the rope of the list or scale, if they even use a scale or are educated about it.

[eddie willers]

In my case as well. In my mid twenties I got pleurisy. If childbirth is more painful, I’m surprised generations continue to be born.

I was in such pain that I had to call my mother to take me to the hospital, where I was doubled over looking like a crab and calling for “morphine”.

The nurse was convince I was a drug addict going through withdrawal but my mother finally prevailed.

So they shot me up with morphine and I didn’t, in the least, feel “high”. But the pain went away.

So add another person (anecdotally, of course) that believes that if you are in great pain, the drug acts differently than if you are using it “recreationally”.

[Crucial]

Rope=top

[Hugin]

F--k Prohibition, and f--k Tyranny in all its forms. If this man had lived in a different state, he'd still be alive, and the fact that some people can't handle true Liberty doesn't mean that it should be brought down to its lowest common denominator because of the weak.

I basically agree, but being in another state probably wouldn't help. I'm in CA and most of this is coming from the DEA, not the state, at least according to my doctors.

[DuncanWaring]

I’m not going to doubt anything written here.

That said, however, I’m perplexed in that I’ve read that part of the problem with the OxyContin/variants addiction epidemic is that when the patients/addicts go to doctors to get prescription refills, they use threats of “bad ratings” to extort refills against the better judgement of their doctors.

[pax_et_bonum]

Prayers for Bruce and all of his loved ones.

[Robert DeLong]

Oh I have several of those, that is not the kind of pain I am talking about.

[Albion Wilde]

...industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt....the richest man in America at the time...lived and died a painful death b/c scar tissue had formed on a procedure....and back then there was nothing to help him.

And Benjamin Franklin, arguably the most famous person in the Western world for decades, had to stand on his head to pee because of kidney stones. It was the only way to dislodge them from blocking the ureters.

[Liz]

horrible.

[TheNext]

WHISKEY

Seriously, how would a few crates of whiskey handle long term pain. I figure store some in the cellar if ever needed. A century ago that is how it was done.

[Agamemnon]

Well, that’s a ‘Duh!’ I’m pretty sure that grinding it up and snorting it isn’t what it says on the prescription bottle. ;)

I was a member of the original research and development team for Oxycontin and MS-contin (that is, morphine sulfate) drug products in the 1980's at Purdue Pharma (at that time known as Purdue-Frederick). The drug product was never developed for the purpose of grinding up, and it was never approved for grinding up and subsequent administration by snorting.

The problem is not the drug product itself, which has relieved the pain of many for over 3 decades. The problem is with those who choose to abuse the use of the medication.

Over-eating will kill, but the problem is not with the food, but with the glutton. There's your "duh."

No different than with Oxycontin.

I later had the privilege of serving as a Review Chemist with FDA, vested with granting approvals for drug products intended for marketing. FDA approves product labeling.

Products prescribed and consumed as labeled are with few exceptions clinically safe and effective.

Common sense should inform users to follow the label, but it is not the problem of the product that some people choose to ignore the label.

FReegards!

[Yaelle]

His steps kids dad might have been Christian.

[Yaelle]

Interesting experience. Thank Gd and you guys for OxyContin. People need to be taught reality about prescription drugs, opiates, and addiction. Doctors need to prescribe with foresight and follow up. And then let be what is. Im pretty libertarian on drugs.

I’ve had two brain surgeries and lots of morphine experience, and for me the time to quit is always the FIRST time you think to yourself, it doesn’t hurt right NOW but I will take one for later. Done, no more.