Posted on 01/31/2025 11:48:40 AM PST by Pol-92064
CBS News spent time with Barbara Goodfriend during the final 24 hours of her life after she chose "Medical Aid in Dying." The 83-year-old widow, who was diagnosed with ALS, explained her decision to die with medical assistance.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
“I shall finish the game”.
A BIL has just developed sciatica and arthritis and he’s acting like he’s ready for a nursing home. He’s a big wimp. He never was much of a doer. He is gonna sit on his ass and watch TV and rot.
I have far more medical issues than him and I cannot sit still. I can’t wait to see what happens next on this mortal coil.
My mother wasn't in pain. She was simply informed that she had cancer in both lungs. My sister decided "hospice" was the right approach. The "hospice" staff drugged her up with excessive (unnecessary at all) morphine and ensured that she was dead inside of a week. There was no justification for what happened, but it was too late to intervene.
It is not often necessary. My mom had a very painful form of cancer, and the hospital medicated her into unconsciousness once they realized what she had. We got her into a wonderful hospice, where the head physician immediately saw that she was over-medicated. He was able to modify her meds so that she was conscious but not in pain. She was in good spirits and receiving visitors until almost the very end - which was peaceful. Certainly there are hard cases - but as the lawyers say, hard cases make bad law.
Because euthanasia winds up being abused for the convenience of the doctors (or, God forbid, the family). In the Netherlands, euthanasia is imposed without the consent of the patient *or* their family . . . and for hideous reasons such as freeing up a hospital bed. And it always goes there.
This is a line that shouldn't be crossed.
I had a neighbor who died of ALS, it was excruciating to watch. Young, handsome man newly married. It was years of steady decline with no way out. Horrible disease.
I will not judge her. I pray for her sake she made the right decision.
That is the last 3-6 months for a lot of us.
Not to mention the indignity of bedpans and sponge baths, and the potential for delirium to give your loved ones some really bad memories.
One of the guys with whom I used to play b’ball, a 50-something police chief, got ALS, and it’s a miserable way to go. In the end stages, nothing works. I really can’t blame her.
If you are a saved Christian, I think God will forgive her.
I have cared for terminally ill patients during my entire career (since 1974).
I am very familiar with this issue. I do not believe “physician assisted suicide” should be legalized. When I teach, I teach that no doctor has ever been convicted of a crime for using pain and or respiratory distress relieving drugs correctly (although there have been a few indictments with not guilty verdicts).
It’s important for society to visibly value life and to be able to convict people like Kervorkian for the murders they do.
But are there edge cases? Sure there are. With regard to them, I would observe only that “those who say don’t know, and those who know don’t say”.
My mom was like you. She spent her last 6 months in bed and all she could do was watch tv and play on her computer, so that’s what she did. She kept track of world events through the internet. She died about ten hours after asking to go to the hospital, but until that last moment she kept herself busy.
My dad died of ALS Thanksgiving Day 2023. He spent the last 6 months of life in hospice. The last few weeks they kept him morphined up.
Best friend’s dad contracted it in his 60s. Remember him saying he didn’t want anyone wiping his @$$. Year or two into it while he was still independent & getting around he was hospitalized but on the day he was being discharged, he had a heart attack & died which I’m sure suited him vs. the alternative.
My brother had that disease. The suffering I saw was frightening. I went to Gleason Graw in New Orleans one year and I found most of the people there had prior military backgrounds, like my brother. Once he was diagnosed with ALS they gave him 100 percent disability.
SOON - are we talking soon as in weeks, months or glacial periods?
“Judge not, lest you be judged.”
You can always count stories like this to bring out FR’s sanctimonious blowholes.
Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn’t have to do it himself. -— Weiler’s Law
My choice to go is to sit in my car in my garage with a bottle of wine and a bottle of sleeping pills, listening to my favorite music while the engine is running.....
So arrest me........
my husbands cousin died from it...relatively young...she was a slow progressor...but eventually ended up completely immobile....no speech...just a constant grin....
May God have mercy on her soul....or her suffering will be far far worse now with no hope of even death.
Nor should anyone else here. I pray they themselves are never put into the same position that this poor lady was.........
It's easy to judge when one is healthy.......
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.