Posted on 09/03/2014 11:16:03 AM PDT by chessplayer
Years ago, Charlie, a highly respected orthopedist and a mentor of mine, found a lump in his stomach. He had a surgeon explore the area, and the diagnosis was pancreatic cancer. This surgeon was one of the best in the country. He had even invented a new procedure for this exact cancer that could triple a patient’s five-year-survival odds–from 5 percent to 15 percent–albeit with a poor quality of life. Charlie was uninterested. He went home the next day, closed his practice, and never set foot in a hospital again. He focused on spending time with family and feeling as good as possible. Several months later, he died at home. He got no chemotherapy, radiation, or surgical treatment. Medicare didn’t spend much on him.
It’s not a frequent topic of discussion, but doctors die, too. And they don’t die like the rest of us. What’s unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little. For all the time they spend fending off the deaths of others, they tend to be fairly serene when faced with death themselves. They know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care they could want. But they go gently.
Of course, doctors don’t want to die; they want to live. But they know enough about modern medicine to know its limits. And they know enough about death to know what all people fear most: dying in pain, and dying alone.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
I don’t want to go into great detail, but during my last week of high school I gave a classmate CPR for 45 minutes, after a motorcycle wreck.
He died 3 days later.
That was in 1977.
I broke his ribs and swallowed his teeth and blood.
I was in Marine Corps boot camp a week later.
Yes, PTSD is real, and YES they should teach emergency responders, volunteers and pros alike, a bit more about the failure rates of CPR.
I was a bit of mess for several years after that event.
It took a heart surgeon friend of mine to convince me that my “guilt” was actually a form of pride, and that God did not expect me to do His job for him. Well, anyway, that is how I finally dealt with it.
If you have serious life and death issues, talk to a Doc. They learned how to survive long ago.
The burden on the family members is also a consideration, especially when they are the caretakers
There’s a difference between advocating death and accepting death as inevitable. It is something we all will share in, whatever else it brings thereafter. Sometimes the length is not as important as the breadth. Some liberals advocate death because for them life is a disease. As conservatives we love life and we enjoy the creations that life brings. It is reasonable to love one’s life and want as much of the best of it as possible until there is no more to be had, and let it end without being enslaved to years of artificial misery. I suppose many doctors see the long drawn out suffering that is sometimes imposed on the dying and want no part of it.
This was published in WSJ two years ago; I use it in my ethics class of nurse wannabes online, to discuss the ethics of doctors, not promoting death, but stepping back when the medical odds are greatly stacked against remission or cure.
Personally, I want to live here every single day that God has something for me to do, and not one day more—but not only can I not say that in my secular college course, but unfortunately the bulk of the class wouldn’t have the faintest notion of what I would mean.
“I hope to go fairly early instead of burning up the kids inheritances. Load up on the painkillers and float away.”
The drug warriors will fight to deny you that. They’re afraid you’ll get addicted, or something.
Enduring torture every day just for a chance to survive a little while longer is not living at all. I need to get a living will in order. For the sake of my sons, I hope to go in relative short order, if not in a blaze of glory.
My brother and I are making decisions now on behalf of our 90 year-old Mother. Neither of us think she will last until Christmas. I do not want my sons agonizing over me about the best course of action the way we have. For my sons, it would be good to set them at peace with: I did the best I could, but I know I made mistakes. There are worse things than dying. I love you both, it’s time to go, see you down the road.
Watched a 90 year old relative burn through all her life savings at $6000/mo. for assisted living care over the last eighteen months of her life. It would be much smarter for families to pay a member of the family $3000/mo. to provide “assisted living” to the elderly and the care would probably be better.
Good post - and an important topic.
Yup. Doctors see all the time the torture (and when you get down to it, it is torture)people go through with extraordinary end of life treatments. They see it, and they are terrified of having to suffer like that.
it was horrific feeling his chest giveway during compressions....
make sure your doc knows what you want....there is death and then there is a bad death...
then again, if we live long long lives, we'll gather all that SS money and if we're healthy maybe we can save even more....
I'm in the minority I want my kids to have a legacy....a leg up...a cushion....my folks helped us, and I intend to help the kids.
There’s a difference between advocating death and accepting death as inevitable. It is something we all will share in, whatever else it brings thereafter. Sometimes the length is not as important as the breadth. Some liberals advocate death because for them life is a disease. As conservatives we love life and we enjoy the creations that life brings. It is reasonable to love one’s life and want as much of the best of it as possible until there is no more to be had, and let it end without being enslaved to years of artificial misery. I suppose many doctors see the long drawn out suffering that is sometimes imposed on the dying and want no part of it.
Very good post. These are not ‘death panels’ as some in here are trying to twist it into.
To my mind a good many of the extraordinary care end of life treatment do not extent life at all.
They extend the natural process of dying.
I don’t see it, personally. If my condition is incurable, what is the point of another few weeks, almost certainly in either great pain or heavily drugged up? Sometimes, based on my mother’s experience, both.
Lost a wife also. Same plan for me except no .22 I’ll just hook up some nitrogen and go to sleep and let the family have an open casket.
The media has a theme regarding death, to always promote it, and from every angle, to every varying audience, and to undermine our culture of life and valuing life, and of our duty to God to place value on all human lives.
This death message has been being hammered by Time and the media since at least the early 1970s.
This subject is of interest to me for two reasons...1) I worked in an ER for almost 20 years and saw lots and *lots* of suffering,death and tears, and 2) I had a near death experience as a teenager (house fire).If I was faced with a desperate,or potentially,desperate medical situation my (limited) knowledge of medicine might be of benefit to me in understanding just what I was being told and what might await me in terms of pain,disability,etc.But OTOH my near death experience (hint:your life really *does* flash before your eyes) has made me fear death a little less than I otherwise might.
It was a tough decision but we just let him pass peacefully. I did not try any CPR and we did not call the ambulance. The Doctor knew what was coming and told us to call him when it was done and he would take care of the paper work.
I told my mother after it was over that I had changed my mind about extraordinary measures and she did not have to worry.
One of my favorite sayings:
Life is a sexually transmitted condition that is invariably fatal.
Good for Einstein. Thanks for the info.
Heroes, both of you.
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