On "Fresh Air" yesterday, on end of life issues

Analemma

I listened to most of this in the car yesterday.  There was a lot of plain talk about comfort care, respirator use, life support,  in general how medical science overmanages dying by sacrificing patient comfort at the cost of preserving life.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102638208

NancyD

Analemma, thank you so much for this link. I am going through this right now with my 90 year old father. He's had a great long life, and he doesn't deserve the indignity that's being heaped on him at the end of it. A month ago, he was getting his stuff orgainzed for his tax accountant, still driving, and was able to care for his personal needs.

Today, he is lying in a hospital bed, too weak to get up to use the toilet, so he must wear diapers. He has no appetite, and has a raging intestinal infection probably caught from his last hospitilization two weeks ago. The decline since then has been pronounced.

All he does is sleep. He used to read two newspapers a day. He has a stack of books by his bed at home that he has read since Christmas. But now he can't hold a single sheet of paper up to read.

He wants to let go. But his pacemaker is keeping his heart ticking, so it will have to some other major organ that fails to end his life. 

My siblings (we're seven) have all gathered here this weekend to discuss the inevitable. One brother, the most level-headed, is my father's health proxy. Although there is no DNR order, my father did make a living will that asks for no extraordinary attempts to prolong his life. It will be hard to determine just when that time comes, but if we are told he will not improve from the state he was in the past two weeks, we will know it is time.