a reply to:
schuyler
This is from the post I replied to:
But it wasn't, as the doctor explained. She was alive, conscious, and lucid. As it turned out, she jumped the gun with her "wishes." She lived
another year or so, in fairly comfortable circumstances and in no pain. Who is to say she "should have" died at the time?
You were talking about your mother, who I see, was "extremely ill."
I'm not sure how to address your question. Apparently she afraid she WAS dying, and WOULD become incapacitated? No, I am not saying, AT ALL, that a
lucid, aware, frightened person is equivalent to a vegetative or terminal condition with death imminent.
I think, though, on rereading your post, that you are saying that she had filled one out prior to that - and that she wanted to be disconnected from
treatment at the time in question, being extremely ill, but her doctor told her she wasn't dying.
In that situation, then, for a doctor to say, "You are not going to die" is perfectly appropriate. When my husband was in critical condition (with no
Living Will) he thought he was going to die. I've been sick enough that I thought I was going to die.
Neither of us did.
Refusing treatment and asking for Euthanasia are two different things, but that's not really what you were talking about, I see that.
Sorry if I wasn't clear in reading or responding. Sorry for your losses also. My father was gravely ill, and he HAD a Living Will, from years
earlier. We all knew his wishes. Yet my mother allowed him to be miserable in the hospital while 'the relatives' were en route. ..... I was there
with them, in the hospital, and he was angry. I protested that he should not be allowed so much pain - but they said they couldn't up his dose of
morphine, so he was SUFFERING...Fighting the ventilator, uncooperative with the staff, in pain, and they kept him going anyway. It was horrible.
Heartbreaking.
Eventually (after all the family had come and seen him) they discharged him, because they knew he was terminal - with hospice care, and he was taken
back home. Within a day, he was gone. But at least he was at home, with his family and friends around him. (Congestive Heart Failure and COPD were
the culprits).
edit on 6/2/2014 by BuzzyWigs because: (no reason given)