If it is any comfort to anyone, images of her brain showed that a lot was gone. I was paying attention because my husband was dying of Alzheimer’s. When still rational he had signed do-not-resuscitate and do-not-artificially-feed- with-tubes-or-IVs orders. He begged me not to let him die in a hospital. When he had his final collapse and I had gotten him back to bed, he was awake, but when I tried to feed him he wasn’t interested. He also choked when I tried to give him water. My son and I called VA. Two doctors had reviewed his Do Not Resuscitate orders two months earlier when I felt the end was approaching. After we explained the situation the doctor (one of the 2) said to feed him if he was interested, don’t if he was not. We tried again, but he did not open his mouth. He soon drifted into a coma/sleep and died 4 days later. A hospice nurse came each day and check on things. I was given a packet of care items including a vial of morphine with an eye dropper. I was told to give him some if he was in pain. I did not need to use it. She picked it up after he died.
I fail to understand why people with a strong religious feeling often seem so afraid of death. It is a natural process which we should learn how to face with courage. If we don’t, end of life hospital care will bankrupt our economy with so many elderly, and relatively fewer younger people to support them.
What was done to her is not something I can forget or forgive.
The people that did this to her don’t know if she felt it or not, and they didn’t care one way or the other.
My assumption is that she felt it, because to assume otherwise makes it easier to stomach, and it makes it easier for it to happen again.