Posted on 06/28/2010 10:25:06 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
The doctors finally let Rosaria Vandenberg go home. For the first time in months, she was able to touch her 2-year-old daughter who had been afraid of the tubes and machines in the hospital. The little girl climbed up onto her mother's bed, surrounded by family photos, toys and the comfort of home. They shared one last tender moment together before Vandenberg slipped back into unconsciousness.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
God bless your Mother, Brother, and you! It is hard to lose a loved one that way.
My Dad had Alzheimer's and passed away in April 2007. Hospice was the BEST! HE remained home with my Mom (then 83 YO)and my sister. He passed away at home holding my Mom's hand. No extraordinary measures for that disease but my older brother is fighting Cancer right now and even though the treatments are expensive he seems to have won round one. His latest scan shows total remission. He is only 62.
I was agreeing with you.
Both my parents died of lung cancer, they were far advanced, and opted for no treatment, just hospice and pain meds. 1 lived 3 months, 1 lived 4. Buying an extra couple of weeks was not worth the medical problems of chemo.
Ok.
Exactly. Dying on your own terms. It’s hard to watch your loved one’s go -— but being in the hospital with tubes and respirators and crappy floor nurses and then dying...is 10x worse.
Sorry about your parents. I don’t have a mom or dad anymore. Never gets easier.
This should be from the Onion but it’s not. The nation and world can hardly get any more insane.
Perhaps we should give up and die at this point. This place is hopeless.
I wish your Brother the best! Mine died at 56. He was my best buddy! He lived his life to the fullest which was likely why he died so young. I had to hide the cigarettes from him at the end. ;) He couldn’t breathe but he wanted to smoke.
I have a chronic condition and need a ct scan. I spent 4 hours on the phone last week trying to get it scheduled. Almost the first question I was asked by each person I spoke to was, “are you on hospice?” I have a chronic condition my new doctor thinks can be fixed, I am not dying!!!!!
This article is about a 2 year old child.
It is EVIL to give up on a child’s life.
I'm not advocating euthanasia, to kill people at random, give up on terminally ill kids, kick and torture animals, etc. All I was saying that adults should be given the facts on their terminal health condition and they decide whether they want to be treated or not.
From the article: "Vandenberg, 32, died the next day." and "Instead, Vandenberg, a pharmacist in Franklin, Mass., had endured two surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation for an incurable brain tumor before she died in July 2004."
Ahhh crap I responded to the wrong article. I need to stick to one window from now on.
Whatever, I just don’t care anymore.
Remember when open heart surgery was considered a risky, experimental and likely-to-fail-anyway procedure? Now a quadruple bypass is almost routine. If there weren't some that were "overtreated" for their almost certainly fatal heart disease a couple of decades ago, arterial blockage would still be a death sentence today.
If Obamacare isn't reversed, what is now the best medical care will likely stay the best you can get, or even "progress" to beyond what you are allowed to have anymore.
No problem, FRiend!
The question is who decides who gets more medical care, and who doesn’t.
You think death panels will decide?
Wrong. Death panels will determine political policy.
That policy will be interpreted by statistical analysts.
Those analysis will be implemented by...
Software.
“No one” will deny you healthcare.
“The computer” will simply present “allowed options” in your case.
Eric "Honest Discussion about Race" Holder will decide.
There is truth in this article. There is a point in treatment thatit is futile and torturous. At that time it is wise to have someone step in and give more information. If the Chemo has next to zero impact on people on stage three or stage four cancer, perhaps that is good information to know. Perhaps it is time to regroup and have a good end.
The other issue here is that many of these patients are lab rats for residents and interns and they will throw everything at them.
There is a time to stop and learn to die.
http://www.nrlc.org/euthanasia/willtolive/Stateslist.html
you can download a "Will to Live" in accordance with your own wishes and in accordance with your particular state laws.
They call it a "Will to Live" (rather than a Living Will) because it is oriented toward strengthening the right to legitimate care including nutrition and hydration always, (so that nobody can choose "for" you to be killed via starvation/dehydration like Terri Schiavo) --- and yet is customizable so that you can explicitly decline futile or burdensome treatments which are really of no use when you are truly dying.
Please check it out. Everybody needs a document of this kind.
Plus everyone needs to talk with their "nearest and dearest" about what they sincerly want.
This NRLC "Will to Live" document would be an excellent basis for the discussion, and can be fully tailored to what you believe is right.
Sounds like you should take your own advice.
Sounds like you should take your own advice.
No when one has worked with patients whose deaths were being prolonged through horrific means, usually as someone’s learning experience, one takes a different view.
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