LogFAQs > #969630553

SHRlKE posted...

My sister works hospice and discusses how ass backwards the system is sometimes in almost forcing people to stay alive against their will until the very last moments. But then caveats it that sometimes people in short term pain want to die but recover and have many more years.

It's also such a fucked up difficult thing to have any sort of reasonable conversation about and unfortunately a lot of the time the people making the decisions how little to know experience with what they are campaigning for.

From a personal perspective... I had to watch my grandad in hospital deteriorate over two months. He knew he was done and wanted to go home and die surrounded by his family but was denied this simple request... instead he lay in a bed in a plane white room with no stimulus slowly losing his mind and in pain until nature finally took it's course.

Whatever your stance I think we can all agree more discourse needs to be had on better end of life care with a focus on compassion and respect.

My uncle got so weak from cancer that they canceled his last scheduled chemotherapy because they said there was a pretty good chance the chemotherapy would kill him before the cancer. They gave him some extreme pain meds and sent him home. It was sad but he at least got to die at home with his family.

The night he died, he was sitting up in bed and asked my aunt to slap him across the face if it looked like he was falling asleep because he was sure if he went to sleep he wouldn't wake up.

I don't know how he knew that but sure he enough he eventually went to sleep and didn't wake up.