25 replies to this topic

[folsom500]

One note on your comments- Death by Starvation is the most common method used by Hospice Care for end of life support.
I have witnessed this once as Hospice took away food and then water and upped the pain killers for end care of cancer victims... After witnessing it the first time for my best friend I swore that I would never let that happen again - even if it meant that I would have to intervene to eliminate the pain and suffering it caused...

[Carl G]

It really bothers me that withholding food and water could be considered acceptable. If I did that to my children I'd be in prison. Why is it even an option for a person close to death?

[folsom500]

It really bothers me that withholding food and water could be considered acceptable. If I did that to my children I'd be in prison. Why is it even an option for a person close to death?

It would be nice if we could have euthanasia to deal with severe end of life as I think that is the most moral and ethical method. Hospice use of starvation and then withholding water has been used for a long time and I do not think it is either ethical nor moral... And end of life person should be able to go in dignity and not be in such pain and without subsistence for days onto weeks before they die... it was pathetic to see and will never happen on my watch again -

[Thinkingoutloud]

Maxine, on a personal note - your word choices in this post really bother me. It's inflamatory and accusatory. I don't know if this is how you really think or if you are just trying to be a rabble rouser, but it would behoove you to think about trying to come across as more thoughtful about a difficult topic.

Her nusband did not "kill" her. Don't be do dramatic.

When we marry, our spouses are put in the position of making the best possible choice in a terrible situation, and he did the best he could. If the medical authorities douted his intentions for one minute they could have intervened. No one likes giving up and seeing a loved one go, but sometimes that is what indeed happens.

I watched my mother in law die a terrible death from cancer that dragged on for months. It was truly awful. We need better ways to manage our exit from life.

[supermom]

I see it a lot in the job I do. They give them huge portions of morphine. They drop the dose when the family comes to visit and wants the person to be lucid. It is more humane that way, I suppose. They do not feel their stomach shrinking and their body rapidly dying. They do not scream out. They do not do much of anything. All you hear is the last breath rattling through their windpipes; then they expire. They don't struggle. They don't cry in pain. When the struggle is lifted from the equation the death process is much shorter. The actual process takes 2 to 3 days.

I have no idea where people think this process is wrongfully painful, but the amount of morphine given these patients is enough to barely keep them from being dead. The nurses are compassionate. They stay with the patients even when the families won't or can't come; and they give all the biological and creature comforts they can to a bed ridden patient.

The process of death itself is naturally painful. No one has such a right to expect otherwise. It is a natural process, same as birth and same as giving birth.
Same as skinning your knees when learning to walk; and breathing in a cold lungful of air in the winter when you have strep throat. It is the process of life.

A hospice will offer these services to the patient. And explain it to the patient's family. Oftentimes though, many families are unable to cope with the loss itself and are are unwilling to accept that the process has been evaluated as humanely as possible throughout countries all over the world. In fact, the US probably has the most compassionate view of the dying process than any other country in the world.

[bordercolliefan]

I watched my mother in law die a terrible death from cancer that dragged on for months. It was truly awful. We need better ways to manage our exit from life.

Hear, hear.

Many of us do not wish to be a burden on others when we are terminally ill and have no quality of life left, or when we have intolerable pain or end-stage dementia. I would like the comfort of knowing there was a peaceful (legal) way to hurry the end.

[the_professor]

Remember Terry Schiavo? I'm still in shock over the authorities allowing the hospital to starve her to death. A living human being that was killed because she was determined to be brain dead, though she looked at the people who loved her and smiled.

http://www.terrisfight.org/

Now what we are speaking of is the subject of life and the procedures that a hospital will do to extend life or terminate it.
Let's be clear.....we have still not decided, as a society, what life is and how to handle certain medical procedures involving life issues. It's clear to me by the way Terry died, we haven't reached that point yet.

It's time to shed our emotional and religious thinking and get down to brass tacks. That means we MUST NOT say it's this way for Terry, but another way for another situation. (Trying to tip toe through the mind field of the forbidden word here.)

In my opinion we have our values all screwed up and our minds confused with what is a living human. Note: even though Terry's parents were willing to take care of all the costs of her care, her husband won in court in his quest to kill her for reasons he wanted out of their marriage. How would you like to one day be in Terry's shoes? The way she died was horrible.
Rather than treat her with the humane treatment we would an animal, they allowed her to go through a very hard death.

I don't mean to take this off the path of separation of church and state, but feel as a nation, it's time to have a very clear law about when it's OK to kill a human being, and when a human being is a human being, and should be allowed to live. Clearly, Terry was a human being, fully developed and had people who loved her and wanted her to live out her life.

WE all know Obama is "Pro Choice" and has stated such in public. Agree or disagree, it's clear by the case of Terry Schiavo, that cruel and usual means can be used to terminate a persons life in our country. They give more humane treatment to executions of criminals than they gave to her. Just try to starve a criminal to death and see what happens. But it's OK, if that person can't speak or use their hands to sign language that they are still here in consciousness.

To say things are crazy in our world is a gross under statement.

What the Hell does Obama have to do with this. I think you need a monocal for your myoptic view towards politics.

[folsom500]

Hear, hear.

Many of us do not wish to be a burden on others when we are terminally ill and have no quality of life left, or when we have intolerable pain or end-stage dementia. I would like the comfort of knowing there was a peaceful (legal) way to hurry the end.

We hope that there will be Someday - a legal method but until then there are alternatives... A nice long sleep will precede a permanate one- we have in our relationship such a pact should the need arise ... Nothing Illegal about it-

[The Average Joe]

Yeah, it seems strange that we are allowed to "ease the suffering" of our pets, but must force our loved ones to endure suffering at all costs. I have a living will that is very specific on the conditions for DNR and brain function issues. I think we have all known people who suffered for extended periods while waiting to die. It really makes no sense to me. I know I don't want to be a burden (financial or emotional) on my family. I would also hope for a shred of dignity when I reach the time to go.

[rpo]

If you had followed the news about this situation, you would know that Terry's husband went to court to have her "life care giving" stopped so he could remarry. It's all in court documents.

Until that time, Terry had been cared for with no intent of stopping her feeding or allowing her to be starved to death.

In court, doctors disagreed with each other if Terry was conscious and had the right to live. The cost of her care was brought up and her parents said they would care for her themselves, with no further cost to anyone else. So why did the court over rule them?

It's clear to all who followed this that Terry's husband brought the issue up by going to court and asking for a reevaluation of Terry's mental processes.

Doctors NEVER agreed as to what her condition was but the court decided she should die and she was treated in a very inhumane and barbaric way.

This shows everyone should have a Living Will to take the rights they have, in the event their spouses decide they are no longer wanted and choose to allow them to die because them living is no longer convenient. Terry's husband made the choice to end his wife's life as sure as I live and breathe. That was his goal in taking this into the court room.

I have my opinion about this matter, and although you and others may find it offensive and dramatic, until you watch your child die in this manner, I would reserve my opinions and suggest you have some sympathy for Terry's parents.

First, she was in a vegetative state for fifteen years. FIFTEEN YEARS!!!! Doctors did agree on her condition. They agreed that her brain trauma was "irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons."

Second, brain scans confirmed no brain activity was occurring when she did have her eyes open. Her parents believed that's was a sign of intelligence, but we all know beliefs do not make things become truths.

She was brain dead, as confirmed by her doctors, and there is reason to keep someone alive like that, let alone for fifteen years. Any hope her parents had was false hope and was confirmed by science, which trumps hope. It may sound cold and harsh, but it is true. The outrage about Terry Schiavo should be the fact that we let someone lay there for fifteen years without ending her suffering, if any, earlier. That is dispicable way to treat someone's life.

[cw68]

It really bothers me that withholding food and water could be considered acceptable. If I did that to my children I'd be in prison. Why is it even an option for a person close to death?

Hospice is for patients whose condition is terminal. Their philosophy is to ease suffering but not prolong death. There is a difference between extending life and prolonging death. This is very specific to me right now because my father passed away in December after a surprisingly long battle with brain cancer.

My father, Don, was placed in hospice care in September while still living with my Mom in their condo in Chicago. The last weekend in November he was moved into a nursing home because my mother, a registered nurse, was no longer able to safely care for him. I Planned a trip home December 4 to see him. That morning my father aspirated and he wasn't expected to live into the afternoon. He passed away five days later.

I spent those five days at the nursing home, sleeping the night away in the recliner next to his bed. He was only somewhat lucid a few times. My father, a brilliant man who really loved interacting with and stimulating others, was long gone. The tumor grew and disabled functions like swallowing. He wasn't able to invest food and, at the end, even water. It would have been possible to give him an IV for fluids and nourishment, but to what end? What other horrors would he have to go through to finally die?

Luckily, my father did very well for a long time and only had a short window of hell. Those last few days were so sad. The day he died, while I was sleeping next to him, I told my Dad to go, that it was okay. Having him starve to death was, without a doubt, the most humane thing for him. He was able to have a sliver of dignity and went out in the way we've been dying for the vast majority of time we've been on this planet.

[supermom]

Hospice is for patients whose condition is terminal. Their philosophy is to ease suffering but not prolong death. There is a difference between extending life and prolonging death. This is very specific to me right now because my father passed away in December after a surprisingly long battle with brain cancer.

My father, Don, was placed in hospice care in September while still living with my Mom in their condo in Chicago. The last weekend in November he was moved into a nursing home because my mother, a registered nurse, was no longer able to safely care for him. I Planned a trip home December 4 to see him. That morning my father aspirated and he wasn't expected to live into the afternoon. He passed away five days later.

I spent those five days at the nursing home, sleeping the night away in the recliner next to his bed. He was only somewhat lucid a few times. My father, a brilliant man who really loved interacting with and stimulating others, was long gone. The tumor grew and disabled functions like swallowing. He wasn't able to invest food and, at the end, even water. It would have been possible to give him an IV for fluids and nourishment, but to what end? What other horrors would he have to go through to finally die?

Luckily, my father did very well for a long time and only had a short window of hell. Those last few days were so sad. The day he died, while I was sleeping next to him, I told my Dad to go, that it was okay. Having him starve to death was, without a doubt, the most humane thing for him. He was able to have a sliver of dignity and went out in the way we've been dying for the vast majority of time we've been on this planet.

I'm sorry for the loss of your father. I hope he has found a place that doesn't include pain or suffering. Many times, for the loved one's hospice care can seem almost brutal- or perhaps brutally honest about what is life after health and youth escapes us in our last moments. Good hospice care is humane and brings comfort to the family as they learn through unexpected filters; that even in the darkest and most painful hours, the human spirit fights to survive, against all ends. In that death does come to the patient, it is not a so much losing the fight, or even surrendering, but really it is about accepting.

That's how I see it anyway.

I guess that is why I disagree with early termination of life. Escapism does not allow a human being to follow through with the course of their natural life. It stops the natural progression of the spirit when the learning and soul of a person is stopped when the heart gives in before the mind has.