Scott Adams Blog:
My father, age 86, is on the final approach to the long dirt nap (to use his own phrase). His mind is 98% gone, and all he has left is hours or possibly months of hideous unpleasantness in a hospital bed.
I’d like to proactively end his suffering and let him go out with some dignity. But my government says I can’t make that decision. Neither can his doctors. So, for all practical purposes, the government is torturing my father until he dies
I can’t imagine how painful this must be for Adams and everyone else in this situation.
It is the christians and Hospital Lobby
that are against euthanasia. Maximizing Profits.
Mr. Adams shouldn’t have taken him to the hospital in the first place.
Can’t Mr. Adams just take his father home.
When the illusions of Miracle Drugs and Cure wears off,
this what happens.
I know someone who’s in a similar situation whose father spent his career as a vet. The irony that he would have ended equivalent suffering in animals long ago is not lost on anyone involved, and it doesn’t make the situation any easier to deal with.
Same happened to my Grandfather. He didn’t recognize us when we visited. He’d think he was in another time or place, thinking he was speaking to younger versions of past friends or family when he could remember us at all (which was both rare, and cruel). It’s tough to know what to do, and it’s not any easier when choices are taken away.
Same thing happened to my mom. Many months of unneeded suffering with alzheimer’s combined with a disease that left her in tremendous pain and unable to move. Fucking hate the government for this. Assholes.
My dad died of a brain tumor and that last days of his life were a haze of pain and semi-consciousness. When my dog comes anywhere near that level of pain I’ll be able to do for her something more humane than I was able to do for my dad. That’s fundamentally cruel.
When my grandmother was diagnosed with bone cancer and given six months to live at the most, her doctor gave her a prescription for VERY strong narcotics.
He was very careful to explain to her that she should never take more than one at a time, as taking more than two would almost certainly kill her. Taking five would be sure to do the job.
As it turned out, she went into remission and enjoyed a few more good years, but she often mentioned how thankful she was that he had given her an option if things got too bad.
She was of sound mind, and I suppose that makes a difference, but making someone suffer is wrong.
Even kids understand that it is wrong to make pets suffer by prolonging their lives. You’d think we could give humans the same courtesy.
I was there. Four years ago. My mom spent the last month of her life tied to a bed, being consumed by pain and a massive infection that she got during her stay at the hospital. Dementia (which she never had) kicked in on the second week… By the time I left (since I had to get back to work after staying with her for two and a half weeks), we had agreed to let her go. I left on a Sunday morning, she passed away at midnight that Sunday.
I wish I had the means (I was ready to do so) to have her rest many days before she actually passed.
I was ready to set her free. I was ready to give her peace. That was the only thing I could do in return. She was a great human being.
Mind if I ask where (legal system, I mean) you live?
This is a good story. I hope to never need this option, but if I ever do I hope it’s there.
She lived in The US, Seattle to be exact.
I live in Canada now, and we face many of the same issues.
Yes, I’m in Canada… straight north of Seattle. 🙂
I’m in Mayor Crack’s town 🙂 Much rather be in BC.
As someone who knows many people in this situation, has delt with it and will deal with it in the future, I have a few comments. I won’t comment about Scott Adams’ fathers’ case since I know nothing about it.
If you want to die at home, you have to plan for it. Unfortunately we avoid this subject like the plague, we are unprepared. It is important to have living wills and directives laid out way ahead of time. Even then it can be difficult to know what to do when the time to make a decision occurs.
Once you call an ambulance the rules change. Paramedics must take the person to the emergency room. Emergency room doctors must try to save a life, they can’t take time to look at paperwork about what they may and may not do. If someone is in a nursing home (I guess that was the case of Scott’s father since he was declining from dementia) you need to post DNR everywhere, put it in the records (and sometimes someone working there will ignore this because they believe you have to do everything to prolong life).
I don’t think this is a matter of greedy hospitals, though there is an issue of religious hospitals which insist on doing everything to prolong life. Often relatives will insist that everything be done to keep their loved one breathing. On my last father’s last time in the hospital, we put him on hospice care in the hospital itself. He was on morphine but nothing else, he was simply kept comfortable. The doctor overseeing his case reviewed the alternatives to us and made it clear how horrible each treatment could be. My father was 88.
We have hospice now, which is usually covered by insurance plans and Medicare. Hospice can be at a hospice but more often is provided at home, a nursing home or a hospital. Most people wait way too long to start hospice care, sometimes because they don’t know they (or their loved ones) are eligible, other times because they equate hospice with giving up.
When my mother died in the 1970s she should have been on hospice instead of the attempts to save her life in her last month of life. The doctors did send her home to die, but they didn’t tell us. So a few days after coming home she was sent back to the hospital. The family (us) should have been told that her cancer was terminal, that we should post DNR notices all of the house and set up palliative or hospice care. Well, they didn’t do that in the 70s.
Now I am involved in dementia issues, which deals with end of life issues. I don’t have any simple villains to blame. We know a lot more about relieving pain at the end (no forced feedings, feeding tube, no drips for hydration, use morphine, have someone with the person).
I am avoiding the subject of euthanasia here. I’m just not qualified to write about it.
All of us lucky ones are. 🙂