Replies

Pinging to the Coleus thread and #1,692-3 above, I remind of the formidable collection summarizing the legacy of Terri by backhoe. It is an excellent way of catching up on items perhaps missed and of the enormity of the growing legacy of Terri.

Useless Eaters vs The Death Cult

God bless you, Terri, Requiescant in Pace

8mm

(this includes Ohioan from Florida's ping list, v.7-10-05 with personal updates 7/28.)

I did not agree with what the courts did to Teri. I do not think that food and fluids should be denied a living human being.

However, a person does have the right to write an Advanced Medical Directive and to make a decision on whether to receive treatment or not.

My aunt fell in her assisted living facility a week ago Thursday. As fortune would have it (make that God) I went to visit her that day. The director of the assisted living facility met me at the door and told me that they had just sent Auntie by ambulance to the emergency room.

I went over there and spent the entire evening and into the night with her. When they decided to admit and evaluate her for TIA's (little strokes) and for the spot on the lung they had found on x-ray the day before when she was brought in for fever, her doctor came in and asked her all of the questions regarding medical directives. Auntie had had some dementia, not much. However, she had been perfectly lucid with me the entire visit. Also, she had written an advanced medical directive years ago. In talking with her, the doctor did ask about feeding tubes, but just said "a tube inserted if you can not eat if you have had a bad accident or a stroke and fluids." "Or, do you want nature to take its course." She said she wanted nature to take its course. I was a little uncomfortable with the way he explained it and would have clarified it had the diagnosis the next morning not been what it was. She had advanced terminal lung cancer. She had elected no treatment. He was going to send her back to the assisted living facility with hospice as soon as it could be arranged. Her little dog was there and that was a familiar environment.

However, over the next few days Auntie's condition deteriorated rapidly and she was in excruciating pain. Her breathing became more and more labored. She was on oxygen, as she had been for years only at night. She had emphysema as she had always been a heavy smoker for over 60 years.

A morphine drip had to be started and increased in dosage to keep her as comfortable as possible. While she was still responsive she kept asking me why God didn't just take her instead of dragging it on, because she was in so much pain. I fed her as much (make that little) as she would eat and gave her fluids as she could tolerate. When she became unresponsive to our voices, she still cried out in pain each time she was moved or touched. It was agonizing. My mother and I were constantly at her bedside the last 48 hours of her life. She was allowed to pass with as much comfort as they could possibly give her. She died this Wednesday morning at exactly 12:01 A.M. God was merciful.

So, you see, advance medical directives are not all bad. It just depends on the circumstances.