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.
It was a collateral death: an example of Double Effect.
It's like a soldier who throws himself on a live grenade to save his buddies. It is not suicide. The intent was to save the buddies. His death was foreseen but not intended. If he had done it and by some crazy circumstances lives, he woul consider it a "plus" because his own death, while accepted, was not intended.
THis is my opinion.
Totally agree.
As a young man, I
hit a tree on a snow
mobile. Spent 6 weeks
feeling like a hot dog
at a 7-11. I was pumped
full of pain killers. I
live with moderate to severe
pain, and refuse to take any
prescription pain killers.
I hated the way they made
me feel. I’ve been taking
1800mg Ibuprofen per day for
over 40 years.(kidneys and
liver working perfectly).
There are times during a sciatic
attack when that’s not quite
enough and I can be heard
screaming a block away.
Like clockwork, it’s much more
tolerable in about 3 days.
I can only imagine what this
person went thru if he was
desperate enough to take his
own life. May god accept him,
and end his pain.
Oy. Tramodol was what they gave me for my shoulder before surgery. I took it for three days before calling my doctor and telling him that I would prefer to take tic-tacs as they would at least freshen my breath.
He said that they were required to start me on the other but now that it was shown not to be working they could give me Norco.
I was on Norco for about four months counting the time before and after surgery. No high from them and no problem going off them.
Rope=top
at first I thought you were advocating hanging to rid yourself of pain...
My father had a back surgery that went badly and left tons of scar tissue that caused him agony. He took pain pills for 20 years. I would watch him take 7 at a time the last five years and beg him not to do it as I was afraid he would die of an overdose. His response was that it would be a relief.
Finally, laser surgery came along and a brilliant doctor went back in there and removed all the scar tissue around his spine. My father was back running around as a young man and did until the day he died. I just knew he would have to go into rehab because of the pain medication. He didn’t. He suffered no ill effects from withdrawal of the pain meds. Evidently, he was not addicted.
I have no doubt that my father would have done as this man if he had not had a doctor that gave him huge bottles of the pills for twenty years. I am very grateful to that doc.
The 5/325 sounds familiar.
I am thankful I have a very understanding doctor. But, I also don’t get my meds filled but once every two years. She has even told me just call and she will mail me my prescriptions.
That’s what my Dad’s doc did. Mailed him a huge case filled with these giant bottles filled to the top. I have no doubt he would have been thrown in the slammer if he’d been caught. I feel sure there is a special place in heaven reserved for him because he made my Dad’s life somewhat bearable.
I’m so sorry for your losses.
Trust in God....offer up your pain to Jesus, and he DOES HELP YOU!!! HONEST......I've been there!!
Jesus himself, said that the only sin that was unforgivable was a sin against the Holy Spirit, who gives us Grace.
Wonder why he couldn't find one?
Laying down one's life is not the same as committing suicide. One would seem to earn God's praise; the other His scorn.
But back to the topic at hand, I believe God would look into this poor man's heart and see that all he wanted was surcease from pain. Maybe that's a moral failing, but I don't think He would damn anyone for merely being human.
Then again, I'm not God.
Once you hit the age of 60 years, you NEVER go up on the roof for any reason. Your fragile bones, diminished strength and coordination can’t handle it. You hire the neighbor’s nimble teenager for $100 to go up on the roof to fix whatever.
The MSM has been hyping the increased death rate from opiod pain relievers for months.
In my opinion, the MSM hype this “epidemic” because white victims are slightly over-represented compared to non-white victims in pain reliever deaths.
However, pain reliever deaths (20,000) represent less than 40% of total overdose deaths, and non-white victims are heavily over-represented in the “other” drug deaths.
And, it's not an "epidemic."
Pain relievers killed less than 1% of the 2.6 million Americans who died last year.
:)
I wonder if the man who killed himself ever tried medicating with edible marijuana or edible hash oil?
Would have been worth a try.
THC might not stop the pain, but I can give personal testimony from my youth that marijuana is a wonderful sleep aid.
It’s also a wonderful aphrodisiac, which would certainly take your mind off the pain for a while.
Gotta agree with you. Suicide if fully deliberately intended is a terrible sin and denies God’s sovereignty very decisively. It also forecloses repentance,as far as we know, excuse they dead cannot repent.
But in the case of a man in intolerable pain, we can confidently entrust the man’s souls into the hands of a merciful God. We cannot judge souls, and He who does judge souls, knows pain from the inside and is tender toward those who suffer.
Then I’m glad I corrected...
“Because the dead” cannot repent.
Grrr auto-correct
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