Prager: Why My Stepsons’ Father Killed Himself

Truthrevolt.org ^ | 1-31-2017 | Dennis Prager

[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.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I already posted -— poarweed to you, in fact -— an argment that what Samson did wasn’t suicide.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Poarweed"?

i>"Poarweed"

That doesn't make sense, even for the mechanical mind of the imbecilic Auto-correct.

I think my 'puter is possessed.

[Mrs. Don-o]

This sort of discussion can descend into mutual incomprehension if there are not mutually-agreed definitions.

Please define “murder”.

[Crucial]

??

[Elsie]

Your statement contained a presumption I was.not willing to concede.

The sane folks that justify Samson's??

---

I see your point!

[Elsie]

This is so fundamental and obvious I'm mildly flabbergasted by the ongoing push-back.

I guess using the word 'data' for the word evidence is just too great a leap.

[Elsie]

I already posted -— poarweed to you, in fact -— an argment that what Samson did wasn’t suicide.

Yes; you sure did.

Next thing ya know I'll learn that a church approved annulment is not the same as divorce.

[Elsie]

Please define “murder”.

I think that YOU brought it up.

Evidently your chosen religion has taught you that suicide is 'murder'.

I was merely wondering how it can be justified as such.

[Mrs. Don-o]

So, for clarity, could you please define murder so we will not be talking past each other when we use this term?

You may offer your own definition, and/or that of your chosen religion. :o)

[Mrs. Don-o]

Data is a subset of evidence, but it is not the whole of evidence -— not by a long shot.

Data consists of facts and statistics collected for analysis, with special reference to its usefulness for computation or mathematical calculation.

The words “data” and “evidence” are related but not synonymous. The Bible, a love letter, the instructions on how to dye a polyester jacket, a grocery list -— for instance-— constitute evidence but contain little or no data.

[Paved Paradise]

I’m glad you stuck up for her, even though they banned you. Everyone should have a son that loves them that much. I think one of the biggest problems is that pain is very hard to quantify and people who have not had pain, or had pain to that level, are plainly clueless.

[Elsie]

So, for clarity, could you please define murder so we will not be talking past each other when we use this term?

No; you claimed that suicide was MURDER.

YOU do the defining.

[Elsie]

Thanks for the lesson.

Now, back to the subject at hand.

[Elsie]

The Bible, a love letter, the instructions on how to dye a polyester jacket, a grocery list -— for instance-— constitute evidence but contain little or no data.

I guess the book of Numbers isn't studied much in Catholicism.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Yeah, we got Numbers.

You never heard of Bingo?

[Elsie]

We’re told suicide is a mortal sin...

Unless it’s not a ‘suicide’.

[Elsie]

Yes. I’ve seen the evidence.

Unlike the LACK of evidence that suicide is a mortal sin; every time.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I never said "Suicide is a mortal sin every time" --- if by that you mean that subjective factors such as extreme pain, panic, mental illness or depression could not mitigate the guilt.

Neither I nor the Church can know with moral certainty the interior disposition of another person's soul. All we can know is that, objectively speaking, killing is against the Commandment of God.

Excluding Samson (and I'll tell you it's reasonable to say he wasn't a suicide), there are six suicides in the Bible, and none of them are approved by God:

Abimelech; Saul; Saul's armor-bearer; Ahithophel; Zimri; Judas Iscariot.

Samson is legitimately a separate case because his intent was not to kill himself but to kill the Philistines, not be dying, but by bringing down the building. If he could have contrived to escape from the place alive as the sole survivor, there's no reason to think he wouldn't have done so: his own death was not his goal. This is called "Double Effect."

The Gospel of Christ gives us the most definitive reason for not destroying our bodies, as St. Paul says:

1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own, you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body

1 Corinthians 3:17
If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.

[Elsie]

I never said "Suicide is a mortal sin every time"

Of course you didn't.

I used 'every time' for bait.

Now then; back to what your chosen religion defines as MURDER...

[Mrs. Don-o]

If you can’t or won’t define murder (which is the specific kind of sin we’ve been talking about all along) I can’t see the point of continuing this discussion. We’re not going to understand each other if we can’t agree on what is meant by a by a wrongful killing.