[pbleighton]

Warning, a somewhat morbid post, just before Christmas...

My grandmother died yesterday at 91. She had been somewhat senile for a dozen years, had entered an "assisted living facility" ten years ago, had entered the nursing home part of the facility eight years ago, and had been unable to recognize anyone for the last six years, couldn't feed or bathe herself, etc. This was a terrible thing for our family, particularly for my mother and her sister.

I heard of this via an email from my mother:
"this a.m. the health center called me to say greggen had taken a turn for the worse and was failing rapidly. i did get to see her for a few minutes before she died, very peacefully. she will be cremated and her ashes buried in the winsted garden, as are my father's and several other family members. she was a lovely, caring person and i am only sad her end was so empty and protracted.

see you all on xmas day, love, mom"

I went by to see my mother this morning. She wasn't there, but I spoke to my father, who said that she wasn't in mourning. That had happened years before, and her primary emotion was relief. To her (and the rest of us), Greggen had already died, and the thing in the nursing home was a medically-activated husk. BTW, I realize there are those who see things differently, and I respect those views. I am not trying to be provocative (not always the case with me), but our family is atheist/agnostic, and this is how we look at these things.

This is happening more and more, with our medical technology and state-paid benefits. My grandmother's savings were exhausted in a few years, then in the last six years of her "life", when she was little more than a vegetable, she cost the taxpayers well over a million dollars. I cannot endorse euthanasia, but as a society what are we doing? I don't mean this to be a U.S.-centric post, but to give an example, we have 40 million people uninsured, a large number of them children, and yet we spend our money on this? Yet how can we not?

Look forward 30-40 years, with more technology and an aging population. What percentage of our population will be totally senile, kept alive in nursing homes, and at what cost to society?

Thoughts?

Peter

[mike777]

My Best wishes to you and your family, Peter.

Yes I think I have read we spend more on healthcare in the last 6 months of our lives than in the other 90...

As for what happens in the next 50 years well I am the Forum Poster of Kurzweil!

[Winstonm]

Peter,

I am a hospice nurse so know well that about which you speak. The dementias are the most difficult illnesses with which to deal not only medically but emotionally, as well.

Although I cannot advocate euthenasia, I am supportive of the idea of non-intervention. These patients usually suffer from co-morbidities, often as a result of their primary illness. Aspiration pneumonia is a common occurence as is kidny failure. Their immune systems also are compromised.

It is my belief that for end-stage dementia patients, the humane thing to do is simply not treat secondary illness, offering only measures for comfort and pain control. What is the point iof treating the pneumonia in these patients, or sending them to dialysis 3 times a week when the life sustained has no quality?

It would be good if we had legislation that would allow no alterations from advanced directives, and advanced directives that addressed dementia. I know for me, if I am ever in that position I do not want treatment - I would prefer a simple and uncomplicated death to years of unproductive life.

I am in sympathy with you as my father passed away Dec. 7 - he was a Navy WWII vet. He suffered from dementia as well.

Winston

[sceptic]

My thoughts are, it would be my wish, not to become a burden to my family or my country, I would wish for a dignified ending of my own choosing

my father watched his mother walking down the street naked talking to him as though he were a 6 year old boy, I honestly think, that, whilst I am in fully command of my brain, I should be allowed to make a decision about my later years

Euthenasia versus Dignity

Euthenasia Versus quality of your families feelings watching you turn into what ever it may be

Euthenasia versus resources that could be used to give a child a quality of life that could be withheld from them because someone who has had a good innings in life needs massive amounts of money to keep them in a vegative state

Can you put a price on a human life, my humble opinion for what it is worth

My answer is yes you can, I dont know what that cost should be, but I do not believe life is everything, in 50 years some pretty weird decisions will have to be made about people I hope I am dead by then and do not have to watch what is coming,


The young are not going to look after the old forever, the burden may be to great for them

[mike777]

Well Wayne and Winston you guys really opened up a can of worms.

First legal prostitution, then drugs, and now legal euthenasia.

[GeeGee]

I normally avoid the controversial subjects, but this one matters, a lot.

First Peter, you have my sympathy. It's awful to losed a loved one at any time, let alone at this time of year.

My mother died December 8th 2003, aged 84. She stayed with me the previous summer, and I was so impressed with her for her age. I think she actually became more active, staying with me, than alone in her own flat. It was quite a good time, I hope for her.

Then she developed vascular dementia in the autumn and I had to look after her for a while. What became apparent was that she may have lost her short-term memory, she had not lost her intelligence. But, shortly afterwards she developed cancer, and that was awful. Not so much that she was in pain, but she didn't know why, or where she was, and when we told her, she had forgotten within 5 minutes, so she was in pain, but she didn't know why, or where she was.

We (our family) had a lot of discussion when she was diagnosed with cancer of whether to agree to active intervention by the doctors or just to let her go. We had sort of come to an agreement of a quiet departure when she beat us to it by going anyway.

I would never support euthanasia, but I also think it's right to say in individual cases, this is not the time to make an effort to keep someone alive, without thinking of the future quality of life. Who decides? I would have been really upset if I had not been involved in the decision.

Geoff

[sceptic]

...

[Al_U_Card]

My mother died at the age of 61. Previously in excellent health, she developed metastasized terminal brain cancer and died within two months of the diagnosis. We all have burdens to bear and must compose ourselves with the reality that is life. Find within yourself the meaning of what you experience and use that to improve your own life. Everyone will benefit.

[pclayton]

Sorry about your loss Peter. In 2000, I lost my last two grandparents and my mother-in-law.

Euthanasia is such a slippery slope, and I'm glad you don't openly endorse it. Taking out the sick / old because it costs the state beaucoup bucks is the wrong attitude. I can think of a lot of other things I'd cut from Washington, including the War in Iraq (which most of us agree with), but also the welfare state (which most of use (here) probably don't).

I wrote a term paper in a Political Ethics class during my junior year about euthanasia. The premise was that as abortion became more accepted and part of our culture, that euthanasia would gain traction. I don't remember the specific arguments I made, but the paper was not greeted warmly by my liberal professor at Missoula

I'm glad to see in the last 20 years that euthanasia has not gained any popularity. Since Jack Kervorkian, has the idea even been discussed?

[Gerben42]

I support euthanasia when done for the right reasons (money isn't a good reason).

My grandfather had dementia also and I am sure that when I would reach the end stage like he did, I'd prefer to die rather than having to vegetate like that.

I visited him for the last time on his 86th birthday, still many months before he died and he already reached the stage of "lights on but no one home". So for me, that was the final goodbye to him and his eventual death did not mark any transition for me personally.

A good reason for euthanasia would be that either the patient (like the Italian who passed away recently) indicates he wants to die, or has indicated in the past that he would prefer dying over the current medical status.

The problem with a law that says "euthanasia are forbidden" is that as state you are taking decisions away from people which shouldn't be. This is the same as with gay marriage which is still not accepted in many countries. Even if you oppose it from a religious point of view, you do not have the right to deny it to others.

P.S. If you start to "help" people without knowing 100% sure that they want to be, now THAT's a slippery slope!

[Al_U_Card]

And here I thought that "euthanasia" was a political program for Chinese kids....

Seriously, youthful vigor combined with aged sagacity would be a wonderful combination. We tend to disregard the old and venerate youth.....so we get what we deserve.

I would like to see EVERY hi-school have an obligatory "seniors" course where students would be "regaled" by the stories of the retired and those students as compensation for the seniors would do community service for them or in their names. (Helping with chores at their homes etc.) In this way, the care of the aged (A baby is helpless but we don't let it die, do we?) when they need it would be a social responsibility that we would all bear happily.

[Gerben42]

Euthanasia is a word from Greek origin.

ευ = good, right
θάνατος = death

[Trysalot]

Sympathy on the loss of your loved one -- not the very recent loss of the physical body but the one years ago of her soul.

Deaths such as the ones described above are what my mother calls "the long good-bye" and in recent years she asked for and was granted the promise of my younger sister and me that we will not allow medical treatment to "save her life" if she suffers dementia and becomes ill again with something treatable like the double pneumonia she had at 86. I am primary agent on her health care and life support directives and the holder of the little card that says she has willed her body to a medical school so I know that at some point the decision to refuse medical treatment will be mine.

Yesterday my husband and I took my mother to lunch. She resides in the moderately independent living wing of a nursing home that has graduated levels of care for Alzheimer's patients ranging from a wing for moderately impaired residents to locked wings for those whose dementia is severe and some of them are violent and abusive if not controlled by drugs.

My mother has some short term memory issues now and is very aware of it. She will say to me that her "forgetterer is much better than her rememberer" but that the psychologist on staff taught her some exercises to do that is helping and that she has started writing down things she wants to tell me when we chat on the phone so that she won't forget to tell them to me. I cheered her up immensely when I told her that she wasn't losing her mind but instead that her thoughts were bypassing short term memory and going straight into long term memory and to just wait a day or two and what she wanted to talk about would come back to her. How I found that out was that one Friday morning she told me a tale about someone on her hall but didn't know how the situation was resolved, that night I asked her how it ended up, she didn't remember mentioning it to me that morning, and then, on Sunday morning as we chatted, I asked how that friend was doing and my mother replied, "I told you all about that on Friday morning" and I said "yes but not how it ended" and she said "oh, that night, ...." and explained what she had learned after we had talked. Since then she has not been nearly as worried about the forgetting. But of course the fear of Alzheimer's is I'm sure always in the back of her mind as she has seen people moved from her wing to others over the 15 years since she decided to reside there. "If they go to (name of wing) after coming from hospital, they need full nursing care, most who go there never come back because they are terminally ill and if they go to (name of wing) they don't come back because they have Alzheimers." she says matter-of-factly.

She is very fragile physically, bent over with osteoporosis and suffering from arthritis of the spine and hips, but she is mobile with a walker. She reads the paper, watches television news programs, has definite political views, but now needs help writing checks to pay her bills (she decides when to pay and how much etc.) and sorting and storing paperwork and she no longer writes long letters to out of state friends and relatives because she gets tired easily. Instead she writes notes on greeting cards or telephones them to chat. In one breath she tells me she is ready to die and doesn't understand what purpose there is in still being alive as her quality of life diminishes from year after year and in the next breath she tells me how precious life is and how glad she is that she is still aware of everything.

Thanks for reminding me with the descriptions above of "long good-byes" how lucky I am to be able to have daily phone chats and spend time with my mother who had birthday number 93 on December 2.