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This is controversial because many people feel it's their right to decide if they want to be kept alive artificially after their body naturally starts to shut down. Many are in horrible pain and are medicated for that by choice.
You are right that this practice can be abused, but in most cases the patient's wishes are followed. However, the very fact that a DNR can be abused is what bothers some people. The controversy will likely always be around, as nearly any practice can be abused. Still, DNR is a choice, and people who don't want it don't need to have it on their record.
As for euthanasia, that's not likely to become legal for a long time, if ever. The topic will come up in politics because a few vocal people believe in the practice, however, most do not, even if they believe in choices for themselves. I don't think you have much to worry about there.
There is always room for discussion on these issues, but in the end families should talk at length with their elders long before an elder becomes ill. Then families know better what the elder would want done (or not done) in the end stages.
Thank you for being such a caring person,
Carol
It is so important that people make the choice that is right for them, or that they have a medical directive given to a trusted family member.
It is a patient or family choice re the DNR. One is not required to have it. We had one for Mom, (who died under Hospice care at home) though it was not needed.
When I decided on Hospice for my Mom - I did so because she was 89, had advanced Alzheimer's (and possibly cancer), and was frantic with anxiety and pain. I wanted her last days to be as peaceful and pain free as the law would allow, and this was blessedly accomplished. I will never regret this choice.
I have a Living Will, as does my husband, and all our children know our wishes are the same as those we carried out for Mom.
My husband has DNR in his file. He has been hospitalized twice since then and I saw absolutely no evidence of poor practices (other than hospitals are not equipped to handle dementia patients -- with or without DNR.)
My fear is that a hospital with particular religous affiliation might not honor the DNR decision. I have talked to the hospital administrators of the places that would most likely treat my husband to be reassured on this point.
All vulnerable adults (which is just about every adult in a hospital, at least for the duration of their illness) needs an alert and smart advocate, to see that the patient's wishes are honored.
I suggest that a hospital that is intent on murdering patients for their convenience would finds ways to do it with or without DNR paperwork. If such hospitals exist, it would take more than banning DNRs to stop them. (But the hospitals would make more money by prolonging life, so I'm not sure what the motivation would be. Hmmm.)
I am glad you have the right to not have DNR in your medical file. I am glad I have the right to have it. It is a very personal decision and I would hate to see it legislated.
Regarding black box warnings, drugs in this group are essential for dealing with diseases. If bird-flu had gone to pandemic stage, Cipro would have been flying off pharmacy shelves as it is a front-line antibiotic. It is a black box drug. Warfarin
(Coumadin) is another bbd that is probably the best anticoagulant on the market.
BBD's are serious meds that do life-saving serious good. Is there a risk, yes, but there is a risk to everything we do.
If you think your mom died due to medical malpractice, then seek a legal remedy.
It's obvious that her death has left you bereft. Perhaps it would be good for you and your family to go to grief counseling to cope with the loss and mourning.
Two days ago, we had a vet come to the house to put down our cat, who had an untreatable spinal tumor and who was increasingly miserable and could no longer walk or excrete waste. We can do that for a pet, but we can't do it in cases where prolonging physical life is causing true heartache for everyone involved...MOST ESPECIALLY THE PATIENT.
You are free to hold your own views. Please honor that others see things differently, and have good reason to.
Please note, depending on the age of the patient, elderly patients normally do not survive major surgeries, their heart cannot take the stress like it can for someone much younger. It's not a write off, it's just reality. Sadly he probably would have died during surgery.
Radiologist and Oncologist can tell from a CT scan if they see large cancer cells in the x-ray, and could tell if the cancer had spread to other parts of the body thus why put an older patient through the ordeal of doing a biopsy when surgery couldn't be done. Biopsies are an extremely painful ordeal in itself.
Sounds like your Dad was placed in hospice.... thus the reason for no food or water.... just pain meds to keep the patient comfortable as possible depending on the illness.
Sadly cancer can strike without warning. I, too, was very healthy, and wham was diagnosed with cancer.
if a 90 yr old man has a terminal condition and it looks like he'll die before his wife does , its because he WANTS to die .
my mother was diagnosed with ( among other things ) a mass on one of her kidneys at the age of 81 . she refused any further treatment . i didnt understand her decision but when i started reading up on the subject i found what freq said to be the case . an 81 yr old person will not survive something as rash as kidney surgery and if one kidney were removed the other would stress out and become nonfunctional in a short while .
as far as the dnr decision being left totally to the families -- my family knows about as much about medicine as i know about tact . id like life sustaining decisions left up to me and the docs if possible .
In most cases DNRs serve a positive purpose for those of us who no not wish to linger in an artificial "life" attached to machines. There's a movement to change the words to what they truly mean which is allow natural death (AND).
To be healthy and drugged into a coma for no reason is unconscionable no matter what the person's age and that should be a legal matter. But to be at an age where the cure for the disease is worse than allowing nature's course and offering comfort care (as noted by Captain) is completely different. Many times the "cure" is far worse than allowing natural death and then, after the "cure," the person dies anyway.
I'm shocked by your story, but I don't believe that is what DNRs are all about. I'd be horrified if I were left unable to make that choice should my health be in such a state that keeping my body alive will simply trap my soul.
Again, I'm not only saddened but shocked by your story. My deepest condolences.
Carol
I have an uncle who at this very minute is dying. He has conditions that would be operable in a much younger man, but he is too frail to survive surgery. So he is dying. He will likely enter hospice soon, where medical treatments other than pain control and comfort care stop. Eventually he will stop being fed to avoid prolonging the natural shut-down processes and extending his agony. This is not starving someone to death. Providing nutrition at this point accomplishes nothing really.
Having a healthcare living will/advanced directives is the only way to make sure your wishes are on record, whether it's "do very little" or "do everything there is".
I don't expect my family to be rational about this while in the middle of the trauma and drama. I should hope they miss me. I should hope I've lived in a way that seeing me go will be sad, but my death will be part of my life just as much as my birth was. It's bound to happen, and I'd like to have some say over it where possible.
Doctor's don't even want aggressive end of life care interventions they may very well recommend to their own patients. This is an NPR Radiolab story: www.radiolab.org/story/262588-bitter-end/
Morphine makes for an easier journey. Should I lie there conscious gasping for air...filling up with mucosa...wide-eyed and afraid...perhaps in excruciating pain? Or should nurses administer the sweet release of drug induced sleep?
Ever wonder what happens when attempts are made to resuscitate an old and frail body? Many broken bones for one. A blitz physical assault. So that frail old body can die again tomorrow.
You know NOT of what you speak.
MaggieMarshall, my Dad was on morphine, but still was aware, semi-awake, as he "drowned in his own mucosa"-as you worded it.
If these medical travesties happened to Flowgos mother and my father, I'm sure they have happened to other people, and are happening at this very minute to some innocent, trusting elderly person.
This has to stop, and just because the Drs judge an elders life to be of less quality than normal, it's no reason to kill them off under the guise of mercy.
If the patient would be content to live with a feeding tube, then their wishes should be carried out.
I'm sure my Dad would have chosen a less " quality " life, instead of the excruciatingly slow, drowning in his own fluids, death that the Drs "mercifully" subjected him to.
Hospitals, in my experience, treat the elderly like 2nd class citizens.
Of course I don't mean patients to receive "bone breaking" CPR, but this wasn't even in my father's situation.
He still suffered greatly, he was looking at me in fear, especially the last night.
One month prior to the hospital admission, he was out driving my Mom around and working in his garden.
I went back for his hospital records a few weeks after his death and spoke to one of the Drs and voiced my concerns. She said, "he would have only gotten sick again". What happened to the cancer, she diagnosed? And from all my research since, a mass in the esophagus could be a variety of nonmalignant things, and a biopsy is the only definite way to know. As she looked over the records with me, the best she could come up with was the " he would have only gotten sick again" remark.
Just because she decided his quality of life didn't meet her standards, he wasn't allowed to live it.
What about the sanctity of life, for someone who would've preferred it, over a forced death sentence?
I have been an RN for years and the kindest thing I've seen happen in the medical world are DNR orders. When I first became a nurse we did not have DNR orders. We had to try and save everybody! I remember old folks coming from the nursing homes, bedridden from multiple strokes and we'd be sticking IVs in them and tubes in every orifice they had and when they coded we'd code them and for what reason? So the could go back to the nursing home and do it all again next week. It was horrible, it was cruel. I remember thinking "we're kinder to our dogs than we are to these people".
Death no matter how it comes is ugly. There is no dignity in it. It's hard to die and hard to watch a loved one pass on as their body shuts down.
I'm sorry you and your family had a negative experience. You don't have to be a DNR pt, that is your right. But don't you dare try to take my DNR choice away from me or my family!!!!