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.
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.
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This is a wonderful family story. It becomes a horror when it is Government Policy
People didn't go to hospitals as there were not that many and for family's in rural area's it was a impossible trip. Don't forget, a lot still traveled horse and buggy in the country...Cars were for the rich...The family doctor took it as part of his practice to do such things at the patients request...It was the compassionate thing to do...My father said he will never forget the pain his father went through....This would have been probably in the 1920's. Most died at home and with the family hold a wake...
I still remember my uncle being laid out in his casket at home in his living room...I was probably only about 4 at the time...That's how people lived...We seem so far removed from death with most dying in hospitals and nursing home, alone. It wasn't like that always...death was a part of life.
I would rather die in my own bed that in a hospital tied up to machines, catheters to remove unine, IV's pumping medications into my body and some damnable machine breathing for me...
The one thing I found out in having both my parents in my home when they passed, both slipped into a coma about 2 days before they died. And there was no way in he!! I was going to call an ambulance for them...Mother had multiple myloma that had spread to her spinal cord, she was paralyzed from the waist down and had been for several months before she even went into the hospital...She also had the complication of MS....I called the neuro surgeon (he gave me his home number) and the called the funeral home....
For my father I had to call the police first before the funeral parlor would take his body...(different doctor than my mother had) The sheriff's deputies came, went into the bedroom with out me being present...I am sure they checked his body over for signs of foul play, then I called the funeral home...
With many dying not at home, death holds a fear for many. Most die and the majority of the family never see it happen...the hospital or nursing home calls to tell them...
This is what advances in medical treatment has come to and for 99% of the time, it is a God given advance.. For some, dying in the hospital is a lonely thing...For the more fortunate ones, family is present...
For those younger, you fight for life, for us oldsters we know how we want it to be...Of all the people I have seen over the decades only 1 has said, I want everything done even if means machines...for those that is the way it should be...patients choice not governments.