Posted on 09/13/2011 4:08:10 PM PDT by wagglebee
I watched an old woman die of hunger and thirst. She had Alzheimer’s, this old woman, and was child-like, trusting, vulnerable, with a child’s delight at treats of chocolate and ice cream, and a child’s fear and frustration when tired or ill.
I watched her die for six days and nights.
I watched her suffer, and I listened to the medical practitioners, to a son who legally decided her fate, and to an eldest daughter who advised him and told me that the old woman, my mother, was “comfortable,” except when she was “in distress,” at which times the nurses medicated her to make her “comfortable” again.
I watched the old woman develop ulcerations inside her mouth as she became more and more dehydrated; the caregivers assured me these were not painful.
I listened to her breathing become more and more laboured, as her lungs became congested from the morphine administered every three to four hours, and later every hour.
That is what morphine does, you see. It relieves pain, but its cumulative effect is that eventually it shuts down the respiratory system.
No one explained why the old woman was given morphine in the first place, since she was conscious and trying to speak. It is normal that a mild stroke causes temporary inability to swallow, slurred speech, and a severe headache, but all of these are often reversed when the stroke victim is treated and the treatment includes nourishment and water.
The explanation for not giving nourishment and water – a feeding tube and IV (intravenous) – is that these were “extraordinary measures” for keeping someone alive.
I watched the old woman day and night for six days. The first night, after the first shot of morphine, her mouth hung open and her tongue started to roll and flutter. At the same time, her jaw trembled continuously.
This went on all night and into the early hours of the morning. Her mouth never closed again, except to clamp tightly on wet cloths placed on her lips. Her eyes were partially closed, but they moved back and forth, back and forth, becoming small slits after seven or eight hours, not closing fully until that long first night was over.
She opened her eyes only once after that, when the nurse was late with the morphine, on the third, or maybe the fourth, day.
The old woman started to moan. Not moaning, said the nurses and the old woman’s eldest daughter. Just air escaping from the lungs. Not moaning at all.
The old woman’s eyes started to open, and the air escaping from the lungs sounded exactly like a moan of agony, as the old woman’s face twisted in horrible contortions. I screamed, “Her eyes are opening! Oh, God. Oh, God!”
Even as the morphine, quickly injected by a disconcerted nurse, caused the old woman’s eyes to close and her face to relax, I doubted its efficacy. I thought back to the night before, when I, in tears at the old woman’s slow dying, had been confronted by a delegation of four of the nursing staff, each of them in turn trying to convince me that the old woman was not suffering in any way at all. The morphine, they said, takes away all pain.
But, I answered them, she can feel: she’s squeezing my hand, and if I try to take my hand out of hers, she squeezes tighter, and when I hold a little piece of gauze to her lips, she tries to suck the water out of it. She’s thirsty! This is a horror; this is cruelty!
No, they said. She’s not thirsty. It’s just reflex. But, I tell them, I watched her clamp her lips on the gauze so tightly that I had to pull to get it out of her mouth.
She reacts when you touch her feet, her legs, and her hair. If she can feel that she can feel thirst, I plead with them.
It’s not the same, they tell me. She’s not in pain.
I look at her. But what if you’re wrong? I say. What if you’re wrong?
They stand there, saying nothing. Then one looks at the old woman and says, we’d better turn her now. She and another care worker go about the business of repositioning the old woman, to keep her “comfortable” and the other two leave.
The days and nights went in and out of focus. I sat in a chair at the side of the old woman’s bed, one hand grasped tightly by her hand. I slept an hour or two, here and there, waking always with a start.
“I’m here,” I murmured, so the old woman would know I was keeping the promise I made to her on the first night, after her son and eldest daughter left to get some food, drink, and rest. I promised her then, “I will not leave here until you do.
The old woman was fading by the fourth day. Her eldest daughter had been visiting for an hour or so each day, usually mid-morning. This daughter, a former hospital worker, lightly stroked her mother’s face and hair and timed the length of her mother’s “breath apnea,” the length of time her mother stopped breathing.
She announced the number of seconds, and then counted the number of breaths between each stopped breath. Seven breaths, she said, 11 breaths.
Sometimes she described the progress of her mother’s death, She’s probably down to about 60 pounds now, she pronounced.
Sometimes – I’m not sure when I noticed it first – the nurses asked us to leave while they attended to the old woman. Other times they didn’t. Once, perhaps on the fourth day, I told them I didn’t have to leave: I had watched them turn her, I had seen her tiny naked body as they gently washed her. I didn’t even flinch anymore when they injected the syringe of morphine.
We have to give her a suppository, they said. A suppository? Why?
For anxiety, they said. Anxiety. So that she would appear to die with dignity. The morphine was no longer enough. This courageous old woman, who could face, who had faced, unimaginable hardships with nothing but her faith and her dignity, she could teach you about dignity, I thought to myself.
On the fifth day the eldest daughter visited twice. On her second visit, several staff members entered the room with her. They were all talking loudly, about nothing in particular, except for one care worker, fond of the old woman, who walked over to the bed and called the old woman’s name loudly enough to interrupt the others’ light conversation. She examined the old woman’s hands, lifted the sheet covering her and looked at her legs and feet. She called the old woman’s name again, and the care worker’s face showed alarm.
How long has it been? she asked. She’s not even mottling! (Mottling is the term given to describe the blackening of the feet and hands as the body, dehydrating, tries to preserve the vital organs by stopping the flow of blood to the limbs).
You know, continued the care worker, I don’t think it’s her time. It’s been, what, five days? If she had been ready to go, she’d have gone in 24 hours.The room went quiet. The care worker and I looked at each other. You’re right, I said. The eldest daughter and one of the nurses began to tell her she was wrong, and a nurse hustled her out of the room.
By the sixth night I was not sure I could go on. I slept for an hour or so every four or five hours. I still sat in the chair by her bed, but now I slept with my head on bed, near her stomach.
The old woman’s breathing was laboured, her will to live defying the system and the foolish young doctor who, on that first night, gave her 24 hours to live, as though he were God Himself.
My heart was breaking for her. I could do nothing to save her, could do nothing but suffer with her. I cried much of the time, but softly, so she would not know. I didn’t want to add to her agony.
I had been there six days. She could no longer hold my hand, so I slipped my hand gently under hers. I felt an anguish so profound that I began to wonder if I could survive it.
The old woman’s breathing was suddenly no longer laboured. Her breath eased from her, and her face – oh, her face had become the colour of pearls.
In a split second, the frown that had creased the line between her brows was smoothed away. Her head rested gently to one side. Two care workers entered the room. I saw them in my peripheral vision, but I kept my gaze on the old woman. We’re just going to turn her, one of the workers said.
No, I said, my mother is dying.
One of them left to get a nurse, and then the old woman – my dear mother, my little, child-like, beautiful mother – died.
I put my arms round her, kissed her poor, closed eyes and her now relaxed mouth, and held her limp, tiny body, no more struggling for breath.
I watched an old woman die of hunger and thirst. I watched her die for six days and nights. I watched her suffer, and struggle, and hold onto life.
She had not often found life easy, but she had always found it worthwhile. She was 94 years old. She had been born and had lived all her life in Canada. She had worked hard all her life, married, raised three children, voted, paid taxes, saved enough money to buy her own home, obeyed the laws, donated to charity, done volunteer work, paid her bills, and given much love and brought much joy to many, many people in her 94 years.
In return, in the spring of 2009, her son and her eldest daughter, with the permission and assistance of the law, because this old woman had had a mild stroke, refused her food and water. She could not swallow, so she would have needed the food and water administered artificially.
And the youngest daughter could do nothing except watch her mother die slowly, and write this, in the hope that my mother’s death, like her life, will have made a difference.
LifeNews.com Note: Kate Kelly writes for Human Life Alliance. Reprinted with permission.
What kind of society have we devolved into, when we sanction the purposed death of our most helpless victims? This is the cruelest of all cruelty. May God Bless this daughter, and awaken this nation.
There is absolutely no comparison to having an appendix removed or taking antibiotics with what I was describing as acting like God. I am thankful for and completely appreciate the medical advances which allow someone who is ill to recover and continue with their life.
What I was specifically addressing was people who are unable to let a loved one go and insist upon every possible medical intervention, no matter how invasive or uncomfortable it may be. My husband is a firefighter/EMT and he has been made physically ill by being forced to do CPR on people who are in their 90s, have terminal cancer and dementia, but the families demand, “Save him!”. The poor patient is put through massive trauma simply to restart a heart that was trying to stop...that’s what I was referring to in my post.
I do not know all of the facts surrounding this woman’s death - if we were able to hear from the son and the older daughter, we might have gotten a different set of facts. I have a dear friend who was the only one to accept that his mother was dying of congestive heart failure - his siblings were in denial and kept insisting that she just needed her “meds regulated”. When the mother did pass away, he was the only one who had said his goodbyes. Maybe the mother in this story had an advance directive and they were following HER wishes. The daughter indicates that she had a mild stroke - but maybe it was more than that. Stroke recovery/therapy at that age is extremely difficult and would have been exacerbated by her dementia.
I am really not trying to provoke a fight but I felt like there were details that this article didn’t include and I don’t think the issue is quite as black and white as the author painted it.
I completely agree with you. There comes a time when we need to know “when to say when”. I truly believe that God can work a miracle with or without a feeding tube.
My mom died and prior to her death made it implicitly clear that she did not want a fee ding tube. We used a syringe to give her liquids and fed her applesauce until she rejected everything.She did not suffer and we honored her wishes.
I think I would be in prison sometime during the course of this abuse. I would not be able to be a good soldier. This is beastly.
My sympathies to you in an incredibly difficult situation.
I can’t give you advice because I am not in your position but I can say that I will pray that God will give you peace as you make very difficult decisions. Your husband’s life is in God’s hands and nothing that you do will change the will of God so don’t beat yourself up!
Well then do a living will and you will not have to worry about it.
It is indeed.
I assume that the brother or other sister had power of attorney and the younger sister, the writer, could legally do nothing.
Got one, also I might add that if you go in a nursing hom sign a DNR order. Do not Resuscitate.
If you recall, we were assured when Terri was being murdered that slowly being starved and dehydrated to death and given suffocating amounts of morphine in a 100 degree room with no humidity is “euphoric.”
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I don’t recall, but I’ll take your word for it.
The “nurses” should try it themselves. Seems like it would be a pretty interesting experiment for someone to do for 5 days, and publish some videos of how they actually feel on the prescribed doses sans water and food, to see if it is painful.
Heck, PETA would be up in arms if someone simulated and videoed and published a “partial birth abortion” on a living dog. They’d flip, instantly.
Here is an old ABC News article stating that being starved and dehydrated to death caused “euphoria”:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Schiavo/story?id=531907&page=1
The irony of this claim is two-fold:
1. Unless they have someone who actually communicated this “euphoria” prior to death there is no way to know whether this is true or not.
2. The media was also repeatedly telling us, through use of various adjectives, that Terri was “brain dead” and it is IMPOSSIBLE for a person who is actually brain dead to experience euphoria (though the fact that Terri was conscious and didn’t require any sort of heart-lung machine was also absolute proof that she was not brain dead because brain activity is required for the heart and lungs to operate on their own).
Yeah, “brain dead” my foot.
I remember posted video of her following a balloon, and pictures of her responding to her parents.
>The irony of this claim is two-fold
The problem with serial lying (other than going to hell when you die http://www.freecdtracts.com/heavenandhell.htm), is that eventually and inevitably, one steps in it.
“This is too awful for words.”
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Libera nos a malo
Thanks for posting your experience; mine was on the other end of the age spectrum but was the same: all were treated with care and compassion.
This story showcases an unspeakably evil and inhuman, never mind inhumane, attitude.
I’m wondering WHY she allowed her mother to be treated with such indignity. Period.
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