Please, please play nice. I don't want this shut down. Seems we have many different opinions on end of life care vrs. treatment. Now, I want to say in my own family we had a miracle. My cousin was 19 when driving on wet and icy roads. She lost control of her car and suffered TBI. She is no longer able to attend college, but she does have a pretty decent quality of life. She walks and talks and is able to babysit a beautiful little girl. So, I GET there are miracles that happen every day in healthcare.
That being said, I firmly believe that when a person gets to a point where they have no hope of recovery it is time to "let nature take its course." I have said many times that I am not afraid to die. I am truely not. I am afraid of living in a bed in a soiled diaper, not holding my children, not being a wife, just existing from day to day. I am talking about those people we have all taken care of as nurses, the Alzheimer's patient with a peg tube, the ALS patient that is aware of their surroundings but cannot do a thing for themselves (this is my idea of hell on earth.)
Do you think that if we were more open with our children about dying that it wouldn't be something feared? What is your preception of dying? Are you more afraid to die or more afraid of living the lives like I described above? Do you think that if people were told the truth about their illness or that of their loved ones up front that they would make different decisions? For example, how often do you think a doctor speaks to a family about peg tube placement and says "you don't want to starve your mom to death do you?" vrs. "We can put a tube into your mom's stomach to give your mom the calories she needs to live but it may aspirate into her lungs and cause pneumonia. Or, she may not be able to tolerate it and it may come back out undigested and cause her butt to break down from the constant diarrhea?"
Do you think that different religious groups deal better with death than others? Do you think that opinions on death and dying follow culture lines, geographic lines or party (political) lines. Do thoughts vary from one country to another? Or is it just personal experience that factors in. How many family members I have heard say, "I will NEVER go through dialysis after watching mom on it, or No way would I have chemo done after seeing what it did to Dad's body, he wasn't sick from the cancer just the chemo!" I am really curious about this as I was surprised by the replys I got on another thread when I said too much money was being spent on keeping people alive who should be let die. I would NEVER say money is more important than one human life, but there are not unlimited resources out there and if we can let 103 year old grandma go to save resources for 19 year old car accident then I think that grandma should be allowed to die. AND, I would bet grandma would agree.
One last thing, please don't talk to me about Holocaust prisoners just "existing" that is a separate situation and not appropriate for this debate. You know it as well as I do.:icon_roll
Katie- remember "There but for the grace of God go I". Do not judge your patients. You have no idea what their lives have been like. This woman's life sounds like it is miserable. But it is ALL SHE HAS. No one has the right to take it away just as no one has the right to say to you when you are 90 and in a nursing home that you have used up enough resources- time to go. The healthy ones often live a lot longer, drawing on Medicare and Social Security for many, many years. The sick ones cost a bundle but they die young. How is this woman supposed to lose weight when she can hardly move? Yes, resources are finite, but do you want them to say that to you when you need a triple organ transplant due to some damage from some virus or accident? Sorry, too expensive. Maybe if they had ethics committees and honest communication with patients and families in all hospitals people could make better choices, but we can't shove our own opinions down their throats. As I said before, no one wants to live more than the dying. I cannot imagine facing the unknown and how it feels. Some days I think I am not afraid to die, but some days I think I can't imagine saying goodbye to those I love. No more books, no more music, no more cats, my son's smiling face gone from me. I think it would be hard to say stop my treatment. :paw:
Death is a taboo subject. It is whispered about, polite euphemisms are used instead.
Taboo subjects are rarely spoken about among family members or friends until a crisis happens.
End of life care will come into full power when the taboo recedes. When death no longer means failure (must be the doctor's fault) or blame(he didn't exercise enough).
Wishinonastar, BSN
1 Article; 1,000 Posts
Katie- remember "There but for the grace of God go I". Do not judge your patients. You have no idea what their lives have been like. This woman's life sounds like it is miserable. But it is ALL SHE HAS. No one has the right to take it away just as no one has the right to say to you when you are 90 and in a nursing home that you have used up enough resources- time to go. The healthy ones often live a lot longer, drawing on Medicare and Social Security for many, many years. The sick ones cost a bundle but they die young. How is this woman supposed to lose weight when she can hardly move? Yes, resources are finite, but do you want them to say that to you when you need a triple organ transplant due to some damage from some virus or accident? Sorry, too expensive. Maybe if they had ethics committees and honest communication with patients and families in all hospitals people could make better choices, but we can't shove our own opinions down their throats. As I said before, no one wants to live more than the dying. I cannot imagine facing the unknown and how it feels. Some days I think I am not afraid to die, but some days I think I can't imagine saying goodbye to those I love. No more books, no more music, no more cats, my son's smiling face gone from me. I think it would be hard to say stop my treatment. :paw: