Better Ways to Die
As many of you know, my son is spending a great deal of time right now watching his father go through what may or may not be his last days. He has been very ill with cancer for some years. My ex is remarried, so is not going through this alone at home.
The uncertainty is an ordeal, my son tells me, and the changing information from day to day, sometimes hour to hour, is as bad an ordeal. What he does emphatically tell me is that he will make a living will and establish a medical power of attorney, he never wants this to happen to him, and he wants me to make the same decision.
When I first mentioned the subject, I advised anyone and everyone to get a checkup often and don't be shy. The present situation is an outgrowth of late diagnosis of colon cancer. Follows gruesome details, but I think it is worth knowing what can occur from the original neglect.
The original cancer was removed, but it had spread.
A lung event was next, meaning not typical cancer of lung, but colon cancer that had spread into the lungs. That was removed. A good few months passed. There was recurrence, another lung operation. Then a brain tumor. That was removed. As had been done before, chemotherapy. Then seeming pneumonia, with hospitalization over a month ago. Since then, my son has taken a lot of time off from work, and has the really unpleasant job of keeping his father's family informed almost daily. My daughter was involved with the children going back to school in Missouri, so although I've offered to send her there if she wants to go visit, she hasn't done so and I'm glad. It's been an awful experience for my son.
The pneumonia was a misdiagnosis, it now seems. The terrible congestion may well have been reaction to chemotherapy. But respirators were attached under the original diagnosis, now over three weeks ago. Respirators are supposed not to be used for more than a week, I am now told by my son, who is running the gamut of this experience. A tracheotomy was finally performed a few days ago.
There has been no conscious moment since a couple of days of the respirator. Sedation was pretty intense for a few days, but it has been removed. There was no regaining of consciousness. Commands are not responded to (e.g.; squeeze my hand if you hear me) and there is no way to know what his father is going through.
For awhile my son simply accepted anything the doctors told him, and when they were encouraging he felt like there was improvement. Now he thinks they are just 'being upbeat' under an illusion that the truth is a bad thing only doctors can deal with.
The last time we talked he told me sardonically that he is being told that his father may be able to go home in December, if the present course of treatment goes well.
My ex is 66, is able to take some advantage of medicare, but there is talk of bankruptcy - I don't know these details, don't know how you face that, either. Need I say, it is a real relief I'm not facing all this, but I still am sorry about it.
When you google Living Will you will see many sources of getting the forms, and I'm not going to recommend any particular one. Healthcare directive is a more proper legal form, but I'm only familiar with Texas forms. I have also known of cases when the properly executed forms were presented to the hospital and they were ignored.
Hopefully you will never go through this sort of torment, but if you take some precautions such as expressing your desire for extraordinary treatment in advance, you could spare yourself a lot of suffering. As you have just read, if you plowed through all these nasty details, you may spare some others from suffering as well.
The uncertainty is an ordeal, my son tells me, and the changing information from day to day, sometimes hour to hour, is as bad an ordeal. What he does emphatically tell me is that he will make a living will and establish a medical power of attorney, he never wants this to happen to him, and he wants me to make the same decision.
When I first mentioned the subject, I advised anyone and everyone to get a checkup often and don't be shy. The present situation is an outgrowth of late diagnosis of colon cancer. Follows gruesome details, but I think it is worth knowing what can occur from the original neglect.
The original cancer was removed, but it had spread.
A lung event was next, meaning not typical cancer of lung, but colon cancer that had spread into the lungs. That was removed. A good few months passed. There was recurrence, another lung operation. Then a brain tumor. That was removed. As had been done before, chemotherapy. Then seeming pneumonia, with hospitalization over a month ago. Since then, my son has taken a lot of time off from work, and has the really unpleasant job of keeping his father's family informed almost daily. My daughter was involved with the children going back to school in Missouri, so although I've offered to send her there if she wants to go visit, she hasn't done so and I'm glad. It's been an awful experience for my son.
The pneumonia was a misdiagnosis, it now seems. The terrible congestion may well have been reaction to chemotherapy. But respirators were attached under the original diagnosis, now over three weeks ago. Respirators are supposed not to be used for more than a week, I am now told by my son, who is running the gamut of this experience. A tracheotomy was finally performed a few days ago.
There has been no conscious moment since a couple of days of the respirator. Sedation was pretty intense for a few days, but it has been removed. There was no regaining of consciousness. Commands are not responded to (e.g.; squeeze my hand if you hear me) and there is no way to know what his father is going through.
For awhile my son simply accepted anything the doctors told him, and when they were encouraging he felt like there was improvement. Now he thinks they are just 'being upbeat' under an illusion that the truth is a bad thing only doctors can deal with.
The last time we talked he told me sardonically that he is being told that his father may be able to go home in December, if the present course of treatment goes well.
My ex is 66, is able to take some advantage of medicare, but there is talk of bankruptcy - I don't know these details, don't know how you face that, either. Need I say, it is a real relief I'm not facing all this, but I still am sorry about it.
When you google Living Will you will see many sources of getting the forms, and I'm not going to recommend any particular one. Healthcare directive is a more proper legal form, but I'm only familiar with Texas forms. I have also known of cases when the properly executed forms were presented to the hospital and they were ignored.
Hopefully you will never go through this sort of torment, but if you take some precautions such as expressing your desire for extraordinary treatment in advance, you could spare yourself a lot of suffering. As you have just read, if you plowed through all these nasty details, you may spare some others from suffering as well.
Labels: Health Care, Life
posted by Ruth at 8:55 AM
3 Comments:
"Now he thinks they are just 'being upbeat' under an illusion that the truth is a bad thing only doctors can deal with."
I am sorry for your family's trials through this time. I went through the same thing with my dad. I MADE the doctor come clean over the phone a thousand miles away by basically calling him on his BS. And it was.
My dad was a 74 year old over weight diabetic who contracted a MRSA while recovering from a routine knee operation.
The doctor tried to give me some BS about survival and I told him to tell me the truth as I had already read it. I told HIM what was going to happen and he agreed.
Your son is correct. Doctors are made to think they are able to cure anything and everything with the tools they use. They cannot. We all end up dead in the end, how we get there and what we did while enroute is the main thing we can change.
Sometimes they can pull a cure out of their magic bag of tricks, but more often than not they can't when it gets to the stage your ex is at.
My deepest sympathies and empathies to your son and other children, you and your exes present spouse.
And do that living will... it can make all the difference in the world as to how you spend your last days. I think Terri Schiavo would have loved to have one herself.
G in INdiana
The living will thing is more complex than you realize. It's hard enough trying to imagine all the situations you might find yourself in, but then for every possible scenarior are more complex potential ambiguities. If you're Schaivo'd - that's easy. What you you're unconscious, but may wake up, may not? What if when you wake up, you might be you or you might be 25% veggie? 75%? What about a 25% of 25%?
It's easy to say "No machines, just let me die," but what if the machines keep you alive for an odd 2 weeks - and after that you have 20 years of normal life? What if the machines might give you those 20 years, but it's not clear?
Your best bet is to have someone you trust with a general idea of what you want and don't want, a promise they'll do their best, legal written power to make those decisions, and a pre-forgiveness in case their best guess isn't what you actually want once the situation presents itself.
Ruth, may the end that must come, come soon and peacefully. My thoughts are with you and your family.
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