Posted on 09/13/2011 4:08:10 PM PDT by wagglebee
OK - I’m just going to say it.....there is a complete difference between proactively “killing” someone and simply allowing their body to die.
Before feeding tubes existed, many people, including my grandfather, passed away because they could not take in enough nutrition to maintain life. If this woman had been given a feeding tube and an IV, her body might have been kept alive for a few more days but she was not going to suddenly recover. Dying is a natural process and it will happen to every single one of us. Denying that reality and keeping alive a loved one’s body because you are not ready to let them go is just as wrong as “assisted suicide”.
Both put human beings into the role of being God. I am completely pro-life but if anyone stuck a feeding tube into me when God was trying to take me home, I’d be livid and my family is well aware of my wishes!
I am sorry for your loss - it is never easy to lose a parent.
If I become incontinent, my mind is blown with alzheimers, my body filled with bed sores,, gasping for breath, I want my family to spend every dime they have to keep me alive so I can suffer. I don’ want any of them to get a penny’s inheritance, I want it all spent with the nursing home keeping me alive in a vegetative state.I ant my two daughters to have to come and watch me waste away in pain from terminal cancer or whatever else I have, just feed me, If I cannot eat, dose me up with that liquid crap they put in my veins that keeps me alive so my kids can take time away from their families to watch me die after eating for a long time.If I am totally useless, have no mind, have no chance of recovery, just keep feeding me until they go broke , the government goes broke, and then bury me with the $200 dollars Social security gives for the purpose.
Yeah thats the way I want to go, lying there with my family grieving for me every day and saying what a sad case I am waiting to die.
It costs less than $2000 a month to feed someone with an IV and give them ice chips. The average elderly person gets more than this from Social Security.
Are you planning to try out for one of Zero's death panel commercials?
” . . and shoot the SOB’s that are starving me to death.”
Heh. It’s hard to laugh after reading this story; but you did manage to make me laugh. Ha! I was expecting your second sentence to be as follows: “and take myself out.”
You threw me for a funny loop! Thanks for that!
Boy,I dread the day if or when we face my MIL’s impending death. SIL and BIL have most likely thought she would have already been dead ten years ago. SIL is a German; and I don’t look forward to those two calling the shots. Husband is afraid to get ten inches away from his mother. I think he’s afraid she will die and he won’t be there to stop it or make decisions about her. Don’t know if he trusts them or not. So, we don’t vacation any distance any more.
I’m assuming these “nurses” are super-cocksure that there’s no pain in dying of thirst under morphine, since they’ve tried it for 5 or more days.
Right?
Thank you.
I have to go cry hard now.
I want God to intervene and change this culture of death. How long can this descent into hell continue?
You're right, giving a person increasing amounts of morphine while depriving hydration and nutrition IS proactively killing them.
Before feeding tubes existed, many people, including my grandfather, passed away because they could not take in enough nutrition to maintain life.
Feeding tubes have been in use for over five centuries, the only real advancement is non-allergenic plastics.
Both put human beings into the role of being God. I am completely pro-life but if anyone stuck a feeding tube into me when God was trying to take me home, I’d be livid and my family is well aware of my wishes!
So, using medical advances that God allowed us to develop is "being God."?
If your child had a ruptured appendix would you take them to the hospital to have it removed or is that "being God"?
Have you ever taken antibiotics or is that "being God"?
What about blood pressure medication, vitamins, checking blood pressure and cholesterol levels, do you do any of this or is that also "being God"?
I am sorry for your loss - it is never easy to lose a parent.
I'm not the author of this.
The old lady was thirsty. She wanted to drink. She was conscious. She wasn’t dying. She only died because they starved and thirsted her to death.
I took care of my mother for months while she was under hospice care and finally when her body was ready to die, she didn’t want to eat or drink, it was gradual, but it happened naturally.
This was not a natural death. It was murder. The woman wanted nutrition.
That is the difference, and it is a huge, huge difference.
My heart is breaking from reading this. I can hardly see to type. Murder by starvation and thirst is totally different from the natural death when the mortal body can no longer process nutrition and the person doesn’t want it any more.
Anyone who has seen a natural death knows the difference, as I have, and I am sure anyone like this poor helpless daughter, who has seen murder by starvation, knows the difference.
How much longer will this culture of death continue!
My mother in law stroked, and for water they were giving her some kind of WATER GEL, yuk. It was awful, and she hated it. They said water may asperiate her. SO:
When I was there, I got a glass of crushed ICE and gave it to her a chip at a time, she was so grateful and would not let me stop, so thirsty. They caught me doing this, and chewed me out. Mother in law kinda smiling, they told me if she gave a waiver and not hold them responsible, I could continue. That's what she did.
We all knew that she was not to live long, and she wanted water. She never asperiated.
I believe in dignity, and would do it again.
God bless this daughter
LOL add that $2,000 to the $5,000 you are already paying at the nursing home and it adds up.
I believe the decision should be left to the family and their decision should not be questioned by people who disagree.
I watched my mother in law with Alzhaeimers she wasted away slowly dying in increments ,slowly getting to the point where she could not eat and passing into unconsciousness, she could have lasted a few days longer had they fed her throught tubes. For what? Why put her throught that?
No )(I am dead set against Obamacare and letting the Government let me dies for lack of medical attention they refuse to pay for, but when my time comes do not make special efforts to keep me around. When I cannot eat through my own mouth and cannot wipe my own butt, I will be ready to go. I do not want to lie around like a veggie.
My family has better thing to do than coming to visit a veggie at the nursing home every day. I might add that if you have a loved one in the nursing home VISIT them EVERY day or the care they get will not be the best. I know that from bitter experience.
That's a tough one. We took care of my wife's 100+ year old grand mother for about a year, so I kind of know what you mean. Hang in there.
My husband, who is a former cop, upon learning he has Alzheimer’s and Parkinson, threatened to kill himself. I immediately got rid of his guns. He has said many times that he’d rather be dead than have this horrible disease. Against his wishes, I do what I can to keep him comfortable and alive. His Living Will states that he is a DNR and wants only comfort care. As his wife, the decision for me is unbearable. He is in the latter stage, but is still at home. I imagine him to be in a nursing home by winter because I cannot handle him by myself. I cannot and will not judge another’s decision, because I am so unsure of myself, and the right thing to do when the time comes. It’s all about him, but I am the one who has to live with the consequences.
“Without going into personal details, some very close relatives of mine signed advance directives specifying that, under certain circumstances, they were to be denied food and water and given only pain medication.”
I have signed that type of advance directive and have talked to my wife and my sister about my wishes. If I am dying and in pain I want to be made comfortable. I am not afraid of death since I am saved.
I call bullshit! I’m the youngest son. No one, I repeat, no one is gonna kill my mother. I don’t give a fat, rat’s ass what the doctors or oldest brother think. I’ll go to Hell before I’d allow what this woman allowed.
I find it hard to believe as well, but some years back, a similar thing happened to a relative of mine. She had just one child — quite the fool, that child — to make the medical decisions. The fool did what the doctors suggested and the parent died slow and horrible.
You may wonder how the Germans could have done nothing, or how they could have actively assisted in the Holocaust.
We have among us people who would sit there watching their own parents die in the most inhumane manner. Ostensibly because some judge permitted it, and some medical practitioner swore it was painless.
I would take my parent home if it were a felony to do so and the home a fishing shack.
All sorts of means have been invented to keep nourishment provided to the cells of a human body. We can keep one going with a heart, without lungs, without kidneys, without even a brain. Given the reach of technology, where should the line be drawn?
Whatever that line is, I don’t want it drawn by a committee.
This was before abortion was in full force. Our patients were the most pitiful bits of helpless humanity imaginable. Some, into their 'teens, were no larger than babies.
Because every ward was a "hospital" ward, they didn't come to ICU until they were terminally ill. Every patient was treated with compassion and mercy as if they were our own babies. The doctors hovered over them like mother hens. No one ever was denied fluids or nurishment until they passed.
This mercinary attitude towards dying family members is unspeakably evil. That medical people have come to be so unmerciful is wicked beyond words.
Be careful about signing away your rights to be treated mercifully until you've spent a few days without food and water. With morphine, thirst becomes intensified. Think about yourself in that bed, no longer allowed to speak for yourself.
In the end, this attitude makes us all a little less human. There are incredibly rich and wonderful life lessons to be gained by being the caregiver to someone you love in their greatest extremity.
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