Posted on 07/21/2023 11:04:55 AM PDT by RandFan
Even if you are not capable of doing it yourself? Someone who is bed ridden, dependent upon someone else to feed them, change their colostrum bag and give them their medications yet aware enough to know they are terminal but can still talk and feel pain? I hope I am never that bad off when it is time for me to go, I hope it’s quick and painless.
Government is most certainly the reason, and it happens often. Pain Management is one of the biggest issues along those lines these days. The paranoia over addiction or making addicts means that millions have to suffer more, needlessly. I think you were missing half of the message that the doctor was trying to convey.
I read this article, and my first question was why didn’t her doctors provide better pain management?
This man should not have been put in this situation.
It’s possible that the doctors had already provided the maximum dosage of pain relief they were legally allowed to do. She should have been in a hospice. Sad that the surviving spouse felt obligated to put himself in legal peril.
The family took care of my mom at home on her last few months. She was still in good spirits and sharp as a tack at 96 years old. But she was barely eating - something like 200 calories a day for the last few weeks. Finally she collapsed and we got her into bed where she lasted another week or so.
Still talking but pretty out of it and in pain. The home-nurse gave her morphine, and we could give it to her as well. Looking it up, morphine is a pain killer, but IIRC it also slows down the body system, and as you up the dose to take care of more and more pain, it shuts down the body more and more too.
Obviously my mom was at the end of her days, but the increasing doses of morphine to keep her comfortable seemed a little bit to me like helping her die as well. IIRC I didn’t tell the others about my moral qualms.
“ What you can not do is be a coward and push the job off onto someone else.”
I watched my younger brother drowning in his own blood after a 6 year battle with cancer. He was too weak to do anything for himself by then. He begged me to give him the shot.
So I did. You’d better hope and pray you never get the opportunity to call him a coward to my face. It’d end up being the worst day of your life.
L
Yup, good ol morphine. My late wife had been in and out of hospital several times for COPD and had been intubated several times. The last time they took the tubes out she lasted about a day before the docs said if she wanted to live she would need to be intubated again. She told me and the family nope, she wanted to go home. I told her if she knew what it meant if she was not intubated again and she said yup, I’ve had enough and asked to sign the DNR papers. She signed and hospice brought her home that evening. They gave her medication and she slept through peacefully that night. Next morning she woke up and asked for bacon and eggs and fried potatoes. I made them for her and when she got done asked for a cigarette, of course I gave her one and soon after hospice showed up to clean her up and so forth. They prescriber her morphine in a small bottle with an eye dropper, one drop on the gums was the dose. The nurse was in her room talking with her for a good while, I kinda knew what was going on. Hospice left and her already asleep, checked on her an hour later and was dead. I am sure the hospice nurse granted her wish with the morphine, I got no problem with that.
My neighbor is going through this with his wife right now. He was talking with my husband last weekend, wondering if it was selfish that he just wanted it to end. I told my husband it’s not selfish, it’s REAL. NOBODY wants to see their loved one suffer like this. I can’t imagine what he’s dealing with. She’s lasted longer than all the doctors thought she would, and is in IMMENSE pain, pretty much on permanent Oxycontin. I will not judge anyone in these circumstances.
Because many Christians think you have to think what they think…
It’s terrible.
At least he waited until she was seriously ill
Some spouses don’t even wait that long
You are capable of doing it yourself IF you want to.
Most people actually do not.
Oh sure they say they want it but you place the medicine close enough for them to take it and peacefully drift off and 97 times out of 100 they will not take it.
Talk with hospice workers, they will tell you.
If it makes you feel better you can believe what you like.
Fact remains.
Could you do that? Push that weight onto someone you love?
“He pushed the choice off on you.”
Did you miss the part where he was too weak to even move?
Yea, you did. I most fervently hope that one day you’re in the same situation.
I really, really do.
L
That was my thought, too. I can almost imagine circumstances that would justify something like this but to do it by suffocation sounds grusome. She must have struggled - even if you think you want to die the reflex to breathe can't be overcome.
Should have drug her dying butt to Canada ... they’ll kill you at the drop of a hat!!!!
God gives us the gift of life. We are not supposed to squander it or to end it ourselves without good reason, such as saving other lives. God does the deciding about when it’s your time to go.
If true, then why would a loving god let some one suffer in agonizing pain. God also gave us the gift of free will. Unlike animals, we have the ability to think things through and for us to do what is best for us or our family. So, if God decides when we die, he wouldn’t allow us die of our own free will would he. I also don’t think he would want us to suffer needlessly. Do you honestly think he decides who lives and dies in a time of war, severe illness or in an accident? If you believe he does, he would have never allowed us to invent modern medicine that saves lives daily. Are we going against god will when we cure a patient of a terminal disease?
Informed consent. Doesn’t mean anyone’s gonna believe you.
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