Obama's grandma had a hip replacement in the last weeks of her life?

[eleny]

I just watched Tony Blankley read Obama's statement about this treatment from a NY Times article. And he put this forth as why people could be worried about "death panels".

All I know is that if I have terminal cancer and I'm near the end, if someone tried to give me a hip replacement I'd probably break the other hip trying to kick their stupid ass.

Here's an article from Bloomberg Press about Obama's statement on the issue.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aGrKbfWkzTqc

[cleverusername]

1. Similar story

My grandfather had surgery for a broken hip even though the dr said that he would not survive. I wasn't involved in the decision. I don't know why he couldn't have gone to hospice and been drugged for the pain. The poor man was 94 years old. Thankfully, he didn't survive long after the surgery. I hated to see him suffering so much.

[panader0]

2. I have a living will---no heroic measures, no life support etc.

According to that Bloomberg article, nearly 80% of the health care expense is for those close to death. It won't be that way for me when my time comes. I don't want to place any burden, financial or emotional on my kids. When ya gotta go, ya gotta go.

[goclark]

14. I have it all spelled out to ~

No hero measures for me.

[bbinacan]

3. Yes but the mother

of a good friend was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was told she had 3-6 months. She lived 2 1/2 years and lived life to the fullest. Had she needed a hip replacement, it would have helped her enjoy those extra 2 years she was told she wouldn't have.

[skorpo]

4. My friends mother's cancer was discovered during surgery...

to replace her hip. The cancer was stage 4. She only lived a month after the surgery.

[Dappleganger]

5. My good friend's mother had back surgery in the last months of her life.

Of course they found that CANCER had taken over which is what took her last month. Her surgery was in May.

Enough of this judgmental bullshit.

[hedgehog]

8. Every case is different. Just as no one should be denied

procedures that they want, no one and especially no family should be talked into approving procedures with little benefit. A very common example is a patient in end stage Alzheimer's. When the person looses the ability to swallow, is it time to let them go or do you have a feeding tube surgically implanted? I can't answer that question for anyone else.

[Hansel]

6. My mother died on the operating table having this surgery

She had breast cancer which had spread to her bones and nearly every organ in her body. Just rolling over resulted in broken bones. She had multiple fractures in her ribs and arms. When she broke her hip they attempted hip replacement surgery. I have no idea why because she had already been bedridden for weeks with many other complications and it was obvious she only had days to live. However, she did die peacefully on the table before they even started to cut.

She was resigned to die and asked me if I was ready for her to go a couple of days before. I doubt very much that she wanted the surgery to fix her hip. I think she saw it as her way out. She is the reason that I and my daughter proudly voted twice for the Oregon's right to die law.

[hedgehog]

7. I hate to intrude on people's privacy, but the real question is whether

Mrs. Dunham ever actually walked on that new hip. Until I saw this post, I thought it was the other way around and Mrs. Dunham did not have the surgery because it would have been too stressful. People forget that having surgery is like being in a knife fight and it takes a while to heal.

[SoCalDem]

9. How DOES one "know" they are in the "last months" of their life?

My mother-in-law had a severe stroke and we were told she might not live through the night... she lived another NINE YEARS.

You only KNOW it's the "last month" of life after the death, and you look BACK..

[eleny]

10. True. My mom lived 20 years after a debilitating stroke

But I still don't want hip surgery if I was told that I had a very short time to live from advanced, incurable cancer. I believe that Obama had a point given his own family's circumstance.

[SoCalDem]

11. His sister was more of a caretaker of Grandma, so maybe she was the one

who pushed for it. Hope springs eternal for many people.

I do not want "heroics" either, but sometimes family members intervene.. I've seen it in my own family.

My father did NOT want heroics, and everyone knew it, but the night he called his sister so she could come and be with him at "the end", she freaked out and called 911, so he ended up being tortured for another 19 days at the hospital. I'm sure she regretted it later, but at the time, she could not bring herself to "do nothing".

My best friend agonized for nine long days after her son was in a devastating car accident, but she needed that long to come to terms with the fact, that her beautiful 23 yr old boy was brain dead, and that she needed to donate his organs. She was not ready until she was ready..

[eleny]

16. I had a hard time when mom had the massive stroke that took her life

But I kept in mind what she said she wanted should such a thing happen. She died 4 days later. Missing her was awful but I never had guilt because I did what she wanted. I believe that I did that because I never tried to reverse our roles of mother and daughter.

[masuki bance]

12. I think he addressed that when he was discussing a pacemaker

for a 100 year old lady.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJYvaLS-xOw

[hedgehog]

15. We're forgetting that the elderly aren't the only ones

facing these decisions.

You have an infant born at 28 weeks. Should the doctors do everything possible to keep that baby breathing, or should you let that baby go?

If you have cancer - do you go for another round of chemo, or do you call it quits so you can enjoy your remaining days?

[hedgehog]

13. You've put your finger on the problem. Any doctor can only

give a best guess depending on his or her own experience, and that guess is going to be influenced by whether the doctor is an optimist or pessimist, whether he or she thinks everything should be tried or whether he or she thinks sometimes people need to go in peace, etc.

I'm hoping part of the health reform is to gather data so doctors can give better odds. We need to remember though, that guidelines are just guidelines, and there are always exceptions.

My dad's sister had a massive brain aneurysm and was dead before she hit the floor. He had an aneurysm and made it to the hospital. He went through an induced coma, several surgeries and had his heart stop due to blood poisoning. That was 23 years ago. He's still working part time.