Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to re: Consider yours.

Yeah, yeah, he's a filthy beast.
Mary Anne — (archived)

It must be true. I read it on a website.

Why is it always one way and never the other? Why can people not get it through their heads that sometimes a hard decision is the correct one?

Let me share a little something with you all:

You know my dad died recently. He died because of esophageal cancer, but that's not what killed him. He starved. On purpose. He went into the hospital and they put in a feeding tube, because the tumor was too big to allow anything down. After several days of that, he decided that it was a stupid way to live, and a stupid way to die, because he realized that they could continue to feed him and keep him alive long after he could no longer tell them to get lost. So he made them take it out, and he went home. Hospice people came to visit regularly, and administered medication for the pain. He wasted over a period of a couple of weeks, and he died. His life, his death, his choice.

It was not an easy thing, but he had, for inspiration, the example of his mother, who lingered with cancer and all of the extremely painful, "life-preserving" treatments they pushed on her (this was before people were allowed to say no), and of his dad, who died after a long descent into dementia, when he couldn't speak for himself. He didn't want to be at the mercy of the people who would try to prolong his life. He, quite literally, preferred to starve. My mother understands this, and so do I. Fortunately for us, he was a man who preferred to control his situation, and was not shy about making his wishes known. I learned how to tell doctors off from him.

This is exactly why I believe Michael Schaivo when he says he is standing up for what his wife said she wanted: because I know it can happen. I know this can be what a person wants.

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