Posted on 12/07/2011 1:11:20 AM PST by JerseyanExile
Wow.... The Save Terry, life at any cost crowd are going to hate this article.
It is correct of course. The cost of medical is out of control because of chasing after futile heroic measures during the last 6 months or year of life.
It should be the patient’s informed decision.
I think I would try some of the treatments.
I have Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, TERMINAL. There is no treatment for anyone over 65 unless you have unlimited funds and can find someone to do a double lung transplant. I don't have the money or desire to undergo that type of radical treatment, so I am doing exactly as you think that you do if you discovered that you were going to die fairly soon.
As a born again Christian, my first priority was to get my spiritual life in order, then I have had no problem enjoying my family and friends.
God has been good to me. I have a great family. My children are well established and have great marriages and children. Grandchildren are graduating from college with highest of honors and getting married. One of my children has been married a Naval Officer for 20 years.
I am on 02 24/7, but I can still drive, work for my daughter several hours a day, go to church every Sunday and a number of things that I can slip over my family.
Even though, I am in the last stages of this horrible disease, I refuse to not have as much quality of life as possible.
You have the drill down perfect!
Sorry for the long post.
Maria
Sorry for your loss. I’ve been there!
Bingo!
Where'd you get that "fact"? Maybe you know to much or to little. ??????
Maybe we go into medicine to figure out what death means. Kind of like how the kookiest docs go into psychiatry. I've never met a psychiatrist who didn't have mental illness of some kind.
Well that covers most of the clichés. most doctors in my group got into medicine because they wanted to help sick people, enjoy an interesting life filled with intellectual stimulation that pays well, status, family pressure but "fear" or death quest isn't even on the radar. I found the craziest doctors are in pain management, industrial medicine, workers comp doctors and those working on federal institutions (prison, Indian reservation, substance abuse clinics).
Coming from a family of docs, it is true in my family. Not only did my parents chose to forego treatment for their diseases but watching them allowed me to come to the same conclusion. I do not want to be poked and prodded and tested and medicated. What I want is comfort care. Palliative care if you will. Treat my pain so that I can continue to function in some reasonable level and then leave me be. Death is not so frightening as the alternatives that modern medicine often provides.
I think this article indicates the opposite: doctors have a much lower fear of death as they deal with it so often.....
If their fear was greater, they would do everything to prolong their lives like most - but they don’t......
But actually, almost all who don’t know what their relationship with God is fear death......
The article is referring to what doctors chose for themselves. The two situations you describe are far different than finding out one has pancreatic cancer. Doctors save others all the time. The offer the best care and treatment and care they can. When it comes to themselves, particularly with terminal diseases (cancers etc) they often opt to do nothing other than live their lives as best they can.
I disagree. It's reality. If you want to fight for life (a life that really isn't life and isn't worth living) then that is your business...but it should also be YOUR money. Not mine. And not the taxpayers. I really don't have an issue helping save lives but when we go beyond the reasonable...so "mom" can carve out an extra month or two at the cost of $300,000...then...I have an issue.
I have an issue 1) ethically and 2) financially. Ethically is a no brainer. Come on...live life and die with some dignity. Financially: Why should my tax dollars go to that...or an increase in my insurance premiums? I'm willing to chip in a little if we can save a life...but if we are just kicking the can down the road a little...count me out.
I don't know anything about that organization or their motives; however, to imply that proper CPR necessitates “someone breaking (the patient’s) ribs,” seems to qualify this article as “pro-death” propaganda.
Your dentist friend is lying to you, or you’re just making up cr#p about cardiac surgery. May I suggest that if you feel a crushing pressure in your chest as you break out in a cold sweat while feeling as if you’re trying to breath threw a pile of sand....... You take some green tea, vitamin D and E, eye of a newt and some meditation. We’ll wait for next of kin to post prayer requests here.
Thank you for mentinoning that people need to talk about what they want. I have a dear friend who carries my advanced directive. I thought about my daughter, the hospice nurse, but decided against it. Family is often too close and one needs someone to advocate for what the patient wants
I want only palliative and life will be just fine
That's something to be proud of.
My parents both rode an ambulance for a long, long time. They made one save of an adult between them, and have always said that CPR is a waste of time, unless the person drops right in front of you. In the case of the save they made, the guy dropped dead, literally on top of Dad. (literally fell on to him. Talk about being in the right place at the right time. Dad told him not to play the lottery ever again....)
Now - kids are a different story. Mom made a handful of saves on kids that stopped breathing. But - with the specific exception I discussed - this story was spot on about adults.
I agree. My 86 year old grandfather wasn’t sick a day in his life that I can recall. He was diagnosed with late stage colon cancer in January. He absolutely refused to enter a hospital. He did not want to be poked, prodded, with tubes in him and with beeping machines around him.
By May he deteriorated drastically and was having hospice care at home. In July we got a call telling use that if we wanted to see him one more time to get there now. We flew down at once.
My uncle, a doctor who lived close to my grandparents, was there when we arrived and the family all had a chance to see my grandfather and speak with him. He was mostly coherent and recognized each of us. We had a chance to express our love to him. I agreed to stay with him and my grandmother for a while to give the others a break. Just before he left, my uncle had some private words with my grandfather and gave my grandfather an injection. I presumed it was for pain.
After a very short time, he passed painlessly and quietly. In the bustle of many family members arriving, the body being removed for cremation, calls to the rest of the family members out of town and the actual grieving, I didn’t have a chance to think.
We had a wonderful, heartwarming memorial a few days later.
When I did have a chance to think, I remembered that injection and thought it would have been so typical of my grandfather to plan it that way. He was a no fuss kind of man and very realistic. Years later, when I asked my aunt about it, she at first denied it...but finally told me that injection was not for pain. My grandfather made my uncle promise that when his time was at hand, no unnecessary life extending measures were to be taken and that when the suffering became too much my uncle would help to end it.
My uncle kept his promise, my grandfather died the way he wanted to, at home, surrounded by his loving family and most of all, he died pain free and peacefully.
I thank my uncle for helping him to go the way he wanted to and my grandfather for not putting himself or the family through hospital decision making horrors.
I had to get MRIs twice a year for couple of years and now only once a year. I'm not diabetic and I did not need any kind of radiation or chemo. I have no dietary restrictions. My doctor told me that this type of tumor doesn't usually begin to spread until it hits 3cm. They found mine at 2.5cm. I was lucky, but I did not hesitate to get the surgery.
I’d like to add that the Will to Live is NOT the same as the Living Will. The Will to Live gives more choice to the patient, and is in keeping with from inception to natural death.
Here’s the URL again:
http://www.nrlc.org/euthanasia/willtolive/index.html
I dont think the article is talking about sudden cardiac events in the younger people. I think that the author is referencing sudden events in the elderly and significant terminal diagnosis in everyone.
Even so, this is a personal issue between the patient and family with medical input. As medical people become more and more, arms of the government (witness the government questions about guns and the reporting requirements which get more onerous by the year, as well as how they, as a group, throw themselves at Universal Health Care.
My uncle kept his promise, my grandfather died the way he wanted to, at home, surrounded by his loving family and most of all, he died pain free and peacefully.
I thank my uncle for helping him to go the way he wanted to and my grandfather for not putting himself or the family through hospital decision making horrors.
_____________________
This is a wonderful family story. It becomes a horror when it is Government Policy
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