Posted on 06/05/2011 7:50:41 PM PDT by surroundedbyblue
Every night before closing his eyes, while lying on a hospital bed in his living room, Francis Massco pleaded to his wife of almost 60 years: "Pray that God takes me home tonight."
Three years after a diagnosis of prostate cancer, followed by costly, invasive treatments, Massco, 82, decided in February against more chemotherapy.
"I wouldn't be mad if I fell over right now," he told the Tribune-Review last month.
The one-time corporate attorney resisted a little-known tenet of medicine: Hospitals and doctors make more money by aggressively treating terminal patients than by keeping them free of pain and letting them die with dignity. Some doctors derisively call the practice "flogging" — as in, beating a dead horse.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
Thanks. Looks like something I would relate to.
Absolutely not.
It isn’t up to me, and it shouldn’t be up to the government either..these things used to be a family decision and in a dignified way.
The government has ‘depersonalised’ medical decision making...for now.
No, an IV wouldn’t change the fact they want something to drink...in my mothers case we used crush ice, they can hold it in their mouth longer... and the threat of water going into their lungs is minimal...in which case they drown when given too much.
I think it’s important to remember there are stages of death....and clear signs the person is dying. The hospital we were at actually has booklets you can read that reveal these signs and symptoms. My mother pretty much followed these to a tee....but of course these are meant to prepare the family. I am glad I read it since my mom was a nurse and new the signs herself..and was clearly watching herself for them.
Another poster mentioned it’s a gut-wrethcing thing to come to grips with the fact your loved one is dying...and that’s correct...But once you face that and accept...though you always have a bit of hope nonetheless, then it’s simply a matter of enjoying the moments you have with them.
Let me state it another way...
It isn’t my decision to with hold care, or the government’s. It’s the patients and the families.
but what is the basis for the families and patients decision? Is not at least a part of it financial?
My Mom didn't want say she wanted anything to drink. She was mostly out of it and could not communicate well.
But it's not easy to see a loved one gasping from dehydration at the end when an IV would help.
I'm not one who wants to see a person's life prolonged ad infinitum. But the dehyration that hospice seems to promote still troubles me.
If the Gov't was removed, end-of-life decisions would be different and the entire process more humane.
Just clarifying. Your comments seemed a bit jaded & I wasn’t sure where you were going with them. There are lots of pro-death trolls out there & it troubles me so much when I see people advocating for that.
It’s quite easy as a nurse to become pessimistic after years of seeing 90 year olds put thru absolutely ridiculous treatments that you know are not going to get them anywhere except maybe in the ground quickly. However, this article disturbed me greatly since the premise was one of “duty to die” or cost-effectiveness of care, if you will. As I said before, these are dangerous times; but by allowing ourselves to become addicted to gov provided care (like Medicaid & Medicare), this is what we get - a gov that feels entitled to tell you when you’ve had enough.
In this country no one can force you to take a treatment unless in rare cases the dumb ass doctor goes to the courts...
BTW, I’m curious about your screen name. Ethrane is an out-of-production volatile anesthetic. You aren’t in anesthesia are you?
Touched by this and your subsequent posts but I don’t understand the reference to fingernails, is it appropriate to ask what that may be ?
When I was in hospital nursing, I had several patients that did that...One talked to me that she saw her mother and everything was going to be OK She was going home to Jesus...
Re: my last post, her mother that she saw had passed away years before.....
It wouldn’t trouble me at all. The body has a soul and when in the dying process has no need for food and water as it prepares to leave the body. Food and water are earthly things to enable us to live and function. These simply are not necessary when someone is in the dying process...though there is a time where that’s necessarry...but in those final hours..not so...and I wouldn’t encourage it either.
I have learned from seeing two people very close to me die, that we tend to have a need to sustain them as we have a natural inclination to preserve life as long as possible. That’s quite understandable and how we are designed.
However, what we see as comfort may just interrupt and prolong God’s otherwise intention of taking them home. Our bests intentions are not always in the best interests of God’s intentions....and that goes for the day to day decisions we make in life, not just when our loved ones are dying.....We’ve seen parents who coddle their children far too much, as an example of having good intentions. The end result is not what the parents hoped for.
In the end of life it is a private matter between the family and the loved ones. Government needs to stay out of it altogether.
I have already spoken with my children concerning how far I want the medical community to go with life saving practices. Only because I do not want the natural death process to be interrupted by giving false hope to my family members, and because I do not want my homecoming to be delayed.
We are all going to die...but the life saving practices now have gone ‘too far’ in sustaining a body that is simply ready to hang it up.
I can also say that in the end of a persons life there is what is sometimes referred to as a “death rattle”...and it really doesn’t have to do with dehydration as much as the body is breaking down...the vital organs are ceasing to do what they were intended to do.. and that will also affect the breathing passages.
My mom died of heartfailure...but her treatment was for cancer of the esphogus. (Sp). There was a point they could no longer giver her oxygen, though she asked for more. Her body simply was not taking it in the way it normally might had she not been in the death process. To give her more would have caused further complications and possibly her death.
As I said ..some things we think might be a comfort to a dying patient are not that at all. We think from a worldly standpoint where they are between two worlds and preparing to leave.
As I said, I am far from believing that needless prolongation of life should take place. But I'm still dealing with the "dying of dehydration" scenario...that the gasping at the end is what needs to happen.
Not for me...though some find some degree of comfort from it. There is little in the way of understanding how much of these stories are from the drugs used or actual experiences these people have. The same drugs can cause similar hulucinations...or some wuitw bizzare in fact.
My mom had such a distortion of reality from one drug that we came to her room finding she had wrapped all the toiletries from her tray in a hankerchief, and tied it to a broom handle like a hobo would...she said she was going on a trip, and certainly had full intentions of walking out the door.
I rahter like the idea I didn’t have other peoples experiences to gauge in this time with m mom. Nor do I necessarily want to read a hospice nurses experiences, who appears to think she can walk someone the rest of the way into the kingdom. That was just a little too much for me to hear her say. Though might be advantageous for someone dying alone. But each to his own and I thank you for offering it just the same.
Yep...they stil think they can somehow control what is clearly out of their hands to control.
I so much wanted mom to be in her own home...becuase she wanted to be. But I have to also accept that if that was God’s intentions then it would have worked out as so as well...for we have learned that though people may have lots of power and might, they are really helpless against our prayers when God is called into the thick of things...and that includes family matters at the time of a loved ones death.
Might be good idea to google “death rattle” and also effects of dehydration on a person in the death process.
Yes, I suspect there are some cases where Dr.s or nurses don’t adhere as they could to the comfort of the patient...especially if the patient isn’t able to communicate. But I do think this is rare.
Try not to dwell on the matter too long...I will assume she is certainly in a far better place now.
But we all need to remember that the medical profession is doing all they can to take the “sting” out of the death process. It was after all the final penality for sin to begin with. Some will go out easier than others and we can only pray they go on to a far better place....
BTW though their were some very tender moments with my mom..her final moments leaving were far from easy or comfortable for either of us. So are are not alone....some people dying fight death...and my mom resisted when her final moment came.
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