"Death with dignity." "Cruel and unusual punishment."

[Cerridwen]

Values, concepts, tenets that permeate our culture.

"It was a good death." "It was senseless death." "He died for a good cause." "Today is a good day to die."

There was a national debate about "death with dignity" in this country. It had to do with a persons right to determine the time, place, and method of their death. It informed the way we use the brutality of the death penalty. That debate brought about issues such as life versus quality of life and death versus the quality or cruelty of death.

Death began to be seen as part of the human experience. Many of us understood that no one should be forced to endure a long, painful, much less horrific death. Some of us also began to see that forced life, keeping one hooked to machines, or on painkillers that just touch the surface of excruciating pain, was perhaps not really life; that life might have more to it than just existing.

All because we began to talk about death. About assisted suicide.

Anyone who has experienced a loved ones fight with a debilitating disease leading to their death, knows what life versus quality of life means. Anyone who has experienced a loved ones fight with an excruciating and painful death, understands what "good death" means.

"May she pass peacefully." "May he cross over easily."

We even joke about it: “When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.” attributed to Will Rogers

The last meal for a prisoner about to executed, a last cigarette while the firing squad waits, the gathering of family and friends to say good bye to a loved one and to "send them off" with dignity, love, and grace. All part of our shared experience, our shared humanity.

Now I see, for the sake of justifying a political stance, for the sake of winning an argument, to create a diversion, for the sake of saying "I'm right; you're wrong" people saying, "meh, dead is dead."

Not only are you losing your argument, slivers of your humanity are falling away whether you see it or not. It may be that "dead is dead," but how one arrives at dead is of import.

The quality of ones life and of ones death, matters.

[el_bryanto]

1. Very poetic. nt

[Cerridwen]

2. Yes. Quite. nt

[mucifer]

3. K and R and I wish more people could see what CPR and intubation

and ventilation in ICUs looks like with end stage disease and be able to see what the difference looks like with hospice at home.

I really do believe at some point some of this should be the doctor's decision. When someone is elderly with multiple diseases and his/her organs are all failing, I really don't think the doctors should have to ask the family if they should intubate and ventilate. I really think the doctors should have the ability to say "there is nothing more we can do". Doctors can do their best to keep patients comfortable in the hospital in final days. Families don't have to chose to go to hospice.

I do respect other people's opinions. But, I have a very strong belief about this.

[riverwalker]

4. agree mucifer

Full Code becomes torture after a certain point, yet we continue to listen to families who want terminal patients with end stage diseases, to be stuck with needles 20 times/day until they are covered with bruises, have feeding tubes shoved down their noses, breathing tubes shoved down their throats, ribs cracked from CPR, skin burned from defibrillation. It is a horrible way to die. It won't bring them back, won't extend their lives. They are sacrificed this way to placate a family's guilt and responsibility to make a selfless decision, and it is sad.

[mucifer]

5. movies and tv shows are a terrible influence on what many think

is reality. On top of that, people in their grief state often can't think clearly and are asked to sign a bright orange form that states "DO NOT RESUSCITATE". Those are ugly words on an ugly piece of paper. But, it looks like the DNR is changing and I hope it helps.

[Bay Boy]

6. When my Dad was near the end of his life...

...the doctors suggested we pull the vent, that he had no chance and no quality of life. They had me convinced.
But I talked to my Dad first. He said he didn't want to die. So how could I let him? After a couple of days more of
struggling with the vent I talked to him again. He said he was ready. Thank goodness he could tell me his wishes at that point.

[mucifer]

8. Wow that's rough. I hope he was comfortable when they took the tube out.

[Bay Boy]

9. I don't know the medical term...

...he wasn't intubated, it was more like a C-pap forcing air into his lungs.

I could take it off him for a bit and he could say a few words but his O2 levels would drop quickly.

[TreasonousBastard]

7. I got a call from my mother's nursing home...

asking for permission to insert a feeding tube. After talking to my brothers, I said no.

The staff at the home were noticeably relieved. Their business is the progression of old age to death and they have the latest technology and techniques to extend that progression. They work with hospitals with even greater abilities to prolong life. But they don't always see the necessity of using those means.

One wonders if we should do things just because we can do them. The feeding tube is to avoid starvation, which we all agree is a terrible thing, but we've already done so many things to the aging body to get it to the point where it isn't able to eat on its own.

My mother died peacefully a few months later, and after seeing her so many times in the "TV room" full of wheelchairs with dementia patients I did not feel the waves of grief I expected. I felt "it is time."