Posted on 10/13/2005 11:37:42 AM PDT by madprof98
What happens, God forbid, should you get Alzheimers or dementia? You'd better hope that at least one of your kids fears the Lord, and will do the right thing by you.
My Mom died on my Dad's birthday. I didn't know this, but 2 weeks before, she told her caregiver that she wanted to be with her husband(my dad). I blew off my first day of college and took her to the doctors office. I'm glad we had that last car ride. She had lost her appetite, but also became more lucid. Just totally weird.
Let's just say that she chose when to die. Just because someone feels so bad that death is a better alternative, does not give you the permission to end that person's life!
Damn, I hope you don't have kids. Think about it. For babies, they have this lovely bubblegum flavored antibiotic. It tastes like earwax. Now my baby doesn't want to ingest this horrid tasting crap. Do I let my baby die, or do I force it down my baby's throat to save her life? Your momma or daddy doesn't want to take their meds? Tough shit. Meds alone cannot keep a person alive. OTOH, companionship, good food and care, not to mention regular visits from family, can make a world of difference.
We aren't talking about uneccesary intervention here. I think that poor old lady died because she knew she was unloved and unwanted.
She sounds like she brought a lot more misery on herself by shunning her medicines. Daughter probably didn't have the right to hogtie her mother and shove the pills down mom's throat as long as mom was civilly sane, but she ought to have kept urging. If mom's going to die at least she shouldn't try to kill herself with misery.
I get it. I got it in the first place. Yes, I do have kids, and they actually do like me even though I forced them to take meds they didn't want when they were sick, which fortunately wasn't too often. What a ridiculous comparison on your part. I am a baby boomer. There will be way more of us when we're old than there are now. If the care and love is so sparse now for a lot of people, how much more so will it be in 20 years when there is double or triple the old folks, many of whom never had children because they were too busy with their careers?
My 85 year old Mom is loved and she knows it. Her health is very good. She is still very active and drives herself wherever she wants to go. I am thrilled for her and support her all the way. But, if the time ever comes when she gets very sick and tells me that she wants no medical intervention, I will support her. I am not talking about routine BP meds. I am talking about the hospital staff hooking her up to IVs for fluids, antibiotics, blood transfusions, etc., to "make her comfortable." Who is that good for other than the hospitals who bill Medicare huge amounts of money for a person's last days on earth. I am asking for some common sense here. Care and comfort, YES. Medical abuse, NO.
Sounds like my mom. After her hip replacement surgery, she had to be restrained, so as not to injure herself. She apparently decked a nurse, and tried to get out of the bed. The nurse thought it was funny, but I was horrified. After she was released from the hospital, she spent time in two horrible facilities. The last one was supposed to provide therapy, so she could walk again. The therapists avoided me like the plague, since I was there everyday trying to make them watch her eat baby food.
One time, a nurses aid hit her. The woman in the next bed, got on her motorized cart and filed an abuse report and got her fired. She told me that my mom hit her back : ) It is exhausting caring for an elderly relative with Alzheimers and dementia. I finally got her into a board and care facility that only housed 6 ladies, maximum. It was 3 miles from where we lived, and all the patients were treated very well. She ate what the nurses ate...Philipino food. Good stuff.
Speaking of cane fights, my Grandpa apparently shoved my Nanna down the stairs. The kids got together and found him a small apartment to live in. This was years ago. You might want to think about a board and care facility for your folks. If not, you can secrete medication in soft candy, or brownies. Giving stuff away is something else my mom did. My dad served in WWII, in the Army. He came home with a lot of cool stuff. One was a handcarved music box, with bears on either side. Gone. Myself, and my children amused ourselves with that music box, sticking our fingers in the bears mouths, etc. I wanted my grand daughter to see it. Guess what? Gone. All my dolls from around the world, doll furniture, etc, gone. Ehhh, this is too depressing....
D-i-L's grandma always wants it back. Their behaviour has been getting steadily worse the past 2 years. The family has found an assisted living facility that would allow their dog too. They're checking into it.
It's difficult because they are adults but have lost their judgement. Maybe living longer isn't such a great deal if you have to live with diminished faculties. This couple doesn't have Alzheimers just dementia. I think that makes it harder.
Sorry about the music box and I certainly understand. My mother sold all the dolls for $50. Original Barbies, one with a bubble hairdo and a redhead at that (rare), Italian dolls, Shirley Temple, hers and mine, her doll from 1930 plus the Barbie cases and clothes. All for $50. After that, I tried taking stuff so it didn't disappear.
(Denny Crane: "I like nature. Don't talk to me about the environment".)
(Denny Crane: "I like nature. Don't talk to me about the environment".)
Sounds right, EXCEPT . . . suppose you had decided to give your dad a dose of poison to end his suffering. If you were arrested for doing that, would that be government interference? That's what this debate is about.
It's expensive, that's for sure. I don't believe in extraordinary efforts to keep a person alive. Maybe an infant, but surely not someone who is clearly dying. I'm not sure that I understand your objection to IV's. It's the best way to deliver fluids and medication to a sick person.
Bless your mom! She sounds like a wonderful lady : )
Sorry it took so long to reply, but we're house hunting.
Original Barbies? A Shirley Temple doll? Ooohhh : ( Mine were dolls from around the world, and there was tiny French reproduction furniture for a doll house. I wasn't even allowed to play with it.
What really ticks me off, are the invoices totalling about 10k. My mom had some "friends", who totally brainwashed her into thinking that we were the enemy. In the meantime, they loaded the garage door with extra springs, and drilled a hole in the bathtub. I'll give my ex credit for fixing those problems. Someone drilled a hole in the roof, and my uncle found out that it would have cost 20 bucks, instead of the thousands my mom was charged. The police wouldn't do anything about it.
I could go on, but you get the picture. I am thankful that she's with God and my dad.
It's horrific what people will do to the elderly. I think preying on them is in the same category as preying on kids.
My only objection to IVs is what they are used for when people are dying. If you keep administering fluids and blood transfusions, isn't that thwarting the natural process of dying? I support care and comfort, including pain killers. If the IV is the only way to get good pain control, then so be it, but not the rest. Life is precious, and I would want to do all I could to stay here. But, it just isn't right to make it so medicalized in one's last days, hours. At least that is how I feel about it now...always subject to huge reality checks later.
Good luck with house hunting. Exciting times!
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