It is good to see that perhaps this is not what you meant.
FReegards!
Posted on 01/31/2017 12:46:34 PM PST by 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.
I am wondering why he didn’t try moving to Colorado, since marijuana is often regarded as a painkiller.
By whom?
The sane folks that justify Samson's??
Seriously, how does straight whiskey help with your pain?
Um...I’m NOT disagreeing with you! The idiots in my life MADE their choices.
We all have free will.
LOL? WHAT?
Jameson, though...if you’re pouring. ;)
My first kidney stone was a doozy!
I'm glad it happened when it did, and not 18 hours sooner.
I would have been stuck in a slot canyon in Utah instead of camping along a fairly busy road near Durango.
I manage to flag down a car (before I had a cellphone) and they called the medics.
They diagnosed me on the spot and shot me with some morphine.
I was quite a happy camper when we rolled under the ER portico.
The Catholic Church. Do they justify Samson’s “suicide?”
We had to count every pill that went into the home and the smart ones would remove just enough to make it look like the patient was getting the right amount for treatment. You get clued into the "game" when the caregiver starts calling multiple times due to the patient's uncontrolled pain.
Got any documentation to back up this assertion?
It is good to see that perhaps this is not what you meant.
FReegards!
Why not?
Any taxes a business pays is just another payment like for nuts or bolts or magnetrons.
It ALL gets passed to the final purchaser.
And then when the medical facility USES it, the cost is passed to the patient.
Freud...
SAME folks
The Catholic Church. Do they justify Samson’s “suicide?”
There was one which consisted of 5 mg. of something which I do not remember combined with 400 mg. of acetaminophen actually killed pain
norco...the only thing that stopped my pain after extensive oral surgery; naproxen did nothing...
How many years does THC marijuana stay stable??
What pain drugs could be stored or buried for years until you need them in late life??
I know alcohol lasts forever.
Why don't you ask her? It's your question.
Simply because a tax is tacked on to the final cost doesn’t mean the purchaser is willing to pay. They may choose to fix the equipment they already have, curtailing profits and therefore money for R&D.
You are correct. Question, do you think Peter actually believed what he had been told, or after the Resurrection,
visitations with Jesus, and after Pentecost of course, really get it.
In Revelations it speaks of Witnesses being given over to “the Deceiver”. To deny Christ himself to speak for you at that time when study clearly shows that “it will not be your words, but those given to you”. That is what I was thinking about, and it will be unforgivable. Off memory it says, “worry not what you will say, for I will give the words to you in that moment”. In short, it will be a moment of martyrdom that will be historic, or failure that can’t be recovered from...IMO.
Then again, to change or misrepresent the words. “Deliberate false teaching”.... the Pastors will be judged harshly.
Close, but no cigar; this tablet is a generic version of Vicodin, a mild narcotic painkiller containing not 5mg.of oxycodone, but hydrocodone. The “M” part of the imprint denotes the manufacturer, which is Milan. The identifier 357 denotes the 5mg.version, 358 the 7.5mg.version, and 360 is the 10mg.version.
Therefore they are suffering the consequences of unrepented Mortal sin.
If they did not now what they were doing, the Lords pleads their forgiveness: "Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing...'" (Luke 23:34)
So if you did not know,or were not in control of yourself, the personal guilt of sin is mitigated.
Questions?
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