Reply #31: I helped my neighbor die. If you haven't been through this, yet, you will. [View All]

[jazzjunkysue]

The hospice people take their orders from the doctors and usually up the morphine dose when the patient is beyond consciousness. They speed along the process between brain/cognitive loss and major organ failure. The organ failure is inevitable, but, to put anyone through that part is cruel. The morphine drops the brain function below normal, and the morphine drops the blood presure enough to just slow everything down all at once, instead of letting each organ go into failure in a long chain reaction. If you don't suppress the normal functions with morphine, the body tries to rescue itself, by turning up blood pressure, etc, and then the body almost fights with itself. When the doctors know there's no point in that, they suppress it all with morphine, and it's calm and peaceful. I heard they started the morphine, and so, they're taking control of the situation, now. That's what they do every day. It gives the family a day or two or three to take care of whatever they need to, and start the grieving process. Hospice is taking care of the family, as well as the patient.

The judicial process didn't kill her, or liquify her brain. But hospice will ease her suffering. This is done all over the world, every day, and it's not appropriate for the politicians to thrust the whole world through this process on international television, without explaining what's going on.

They're messing with the natural progression of things, and it's not surprising that some people are reacting badly to it.