assisted dying

[Errata]

You are 68 and have cancer? Docs can just say, your cancer is too far advanced and not bother treating you and send you home to die.

There is this thing that for some reason drives me crazy here. Famous people die, an they report that the person "Died of cancer at the age of 97" or "Died of heart failure at the age of 89"

I'm pretty sure the 97 part has more to do with the death than the cancer. I am absolutely sure that being 89 caused the heart failure. So why not just say "Died at the age of 97"? I mean, they were 97. They had a really good run. They were not cut down in their prime in a way that requires explanation.

I don't know why that irritates me but it does.

[Ally]

You know one of the things I don't get with the whole "cost saving" argument is there is a much easier way to save costs if that is doctors main goal: don't bother treating at all. You are 68 and have cancer? Docs can just say, your cancer is too far advanced and not bother treating you and send you home to die.

The idea that doctors will push active killing to eliminate costs when all they have to do is do nothing and you will die anyway.

Where's the savings? It's like Caz already said, it's like some people think dying is optional. Doctors don't have to go out of their way to kill you, it's going to happen despite their efforts.

[Magpie]

The problem is that some of these people may not be in their "right mind" or certainly in the right condition to make rational decisions, and thus could be prey to manipulation for various reasons.

All the more reason why the topic should be out in the open so that discussions can take place and decisions can be made before people reach that stage.

Much the same as the organ-donor issue. You have to discuss it with your family before the time comes so that a) they know your wishes, and b) you are aware of any objections your family may have. You would be surprised (and possibly dismayed) at how many people fill out the orgon donor forms, only to have their family refuse to comply after they have passed (and you can sign a hundred OD cards--your right to consent dies right along with you).

[glyn]

Not sure you got my point, glyn - but never mind.

Yes I understood Caz, perhaps you didnt spot the "smiley"..no worries

[babybird67]

thank you

to everyone who has expressed their views, especially those who have shared sensitive and emotional stories about their loved ones.

Jen x

[caz]

Not sure you got my point, glyn - but never mind.

[glyn]

So its the Governments fault if we die ,and the Governments fault if we dont/cant?..........If nobody drank or smoked,hence reduced tax revenues,the Government would soon find something else to impose extra taxes on...probabley food,then we would most likely die of starvation
I recall my Stepfather being sent home with terminal cancer,daily visits from a nurse,prescribed morphine for the pain......given 2 tubes of morphine tablets and told only to take the prescribed dose and no more.The opportunity ,I believe,to top himself was given to him ,though in a subtle way.The means were at hand,and obviously so.

[caz]

The state actively assists dying here in the UK on a daily basis, by relying on all the tax paid by the large numbers who will drink or smoke themselves to a premature, and almost inevitably painful and extremely distressing death. The state can't afford the luxury of stemming this particular flow (and I'm not saying it should - coughing up for expensive smokes and booze is a personal choice too), but it's a bit rich for it to come over all 'ooh, slippery slopes' and 'tut tut, thou shalt not' and 'suffering is good for your soul', and other associated twattery, when some poor sod, through no fault of his own, is going through hell on earth and could use a kind and gentle nudge to get him beyond it a relatively minuscule bit sooner.

Love,

Caz
X

[Errata]

But Errata - Socrates didn't have much choice as I recall? Wasn't he carrying out a death penalty, imposed by the state for blasphemy (or the classical equivalent)?

Phil

Well, yeah. But it's not so much the reason as the style that counts. The man had a good send off. If you can be surrounded by all of the joys in your life, and still drink the bitter cup (so to speak), then it's clearly time. But it's not a good decision to make with doctors giving you odds and possible outcomes, you are in intense pain, intensely afraid, and all you are thinking about is how awful the future is going to be, and about how you are failing your obligations and your family by being ill.

Go home for a week, with all the stuff you need to stay alive. Gather your loved ones. Indulge in favorite activities to the best of your ability. Remember how much you enjoyed your life, or could have enjoyed your life. THEN decide if you want the chance to get that life back, or if you have had a good run, and it is time to say goodbye.

We had to pull the plug on both my grandparents. They were already gone, we just had to stop the breathing machines and stuff. But I would have like a chance to say goodbye, if circumstances had allowed.

[Ally]

So if costs are the most pressing issue, why aren't patients being offed left and right now? If a patient still has to take the medication themselves, even with right to die laws, what precisely is going to change? Do you envision doctors holding patients down and forcing them to swallow the pills, going come on, we need your bed?

If you don't trust the current system, there is nothing currently protecting patients from mercenary doctors. But that's not happening. But suddenly, if patients are allowed to choose, then they are going to be preyed on by these doctors?

Maybe that's part of the problem of the British health care system. Over here doctors get more money as long as you are alive so there is actually incentive to keep you going.

I'll spare you all my weepy family story about how my father died coughing up fountains of blood because he was talked out of killing himself quickly because really, it's irrelevant.

Decisions like this aren't ones that should be based on emotion. Not when the quality of life for millions of people at stake. And I shouldn't have a choice denied to me, because other people are weak.

People "KNOW" that doctors are evil, rotten bastards just out to kill you despite your wishes. That's not really a position that can be argued with rationally because it's not rational.

[Limehouse]

Hi Phil

That was a very moving story and your mum was a very brave lady of whom you must be so proud.

I think the most important point you and others are making is 'personal choice'. If I could be certain that every time a person made a decision to die peacefully and in their own way by their own hand it was their own choice then I would have no problem with a law being passed allowing them to do so.

I know my mother wasn't given that choice and even though it was over forty years ago - I don't trust the current system (where costs are the most pressing issue) to fully uphold people's right to end their lives.

Thnaks again for your sensitivity Phil Bless you.

Julie

[Phil Carter]

Limehouse,

Thank you for sharing that very personal, and no doubt very painful memory. I do understand your thoughts on the matter, and sincerely respect your viewpoint.


Hello all,

Please forgive me, but I wish to share a personal story. I apologise for the descriptiveness that some may find un-nerving perhaps.

My mother was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive type of throat and mouth cancer in 1983. She was offered, after 20 bouts of radiation treatment at maximum dosage which failed to arrest the cancer, a life-saving and extensive operation.

This operation, at that time in 1983, would make her only the 5th person in Great Britain to have had this particular operation. It would, if successful, would give her a 20% chance of a full recovery, the chance of survival increasing roughly at 20% for the following 4 years, or she was given a week to 10 days to live without the operation. After a day or two, and a hearty favourite meal, she called me on the 'phone to tell me that she was going to have the operation. I was due to leave for GB the next day whatever.

It was a twelve and a half hour operation, needing more than 250 stitches. One complete side of her jaw-bone was taken away, half of her her tongue, half her lower palate and gums, all the way down to the back of the throat. The stitch line on the outside went from the centre of the bottom lip in a straight line down over her chin and throat, and around in a wide arc across the top of her chest and up to the bottom of her ear lobe. That flap of skin was lifted, and everything within from the throat upwards on the right-hand side was taken out. Some of it was replaced with skin and muscle tissue transplant from her inner thigh. The jaw-bone replacement needed another operation 6 months later by using an extracted rib that was cut and shaped and affixed into her mouth.

During the next 4 years she sank to 38kgs in weight, due to the complete lack of being able to eat properly, and the physical problems were nothing compared to the mental battles she fought. She detested having to wear a baby's bib to catch the slops of her food (that dribbled from the corner of her mouth) whatever it was, that had to be thrown into a blender to make a soup. She used half a box of tissues at every meal because she was determined to try to feed herself. In addition, it was extremely hard for her to make herself understood in conversation. Grunts of "yes" and "no" were the norm.

Having survived 4 and a half years of intense physical and mental anguish, in total shame of her condition and in ever-spiralling frustration, she told one day in as clear a voice as possible that she "wished I had never had the operation after all.. whatever the chances were, because this made me feel less than a human being."

With that, she reached for my cigarettes, and smoked one for the first time in 5 years. She pointed to a can of lager, and I opened it for her, poured her a half glass, and added two straws.She drank the beer in 20 minutes. I saw colour come to her cheeks, a massive, yet hideously crooked smile, and heard the words.. "now I am living again". It was the first time in 4 and a half years my father could relax as well. He was a worn-down man, and never really regained the persona he once had having used his all on his wife's well-being.

Mum died three weeks later, aged 71.

Now all of this has come and gone in my head since 1987, soon 25 years.
The thoughts I have today are simple. It is, for me, about personal choice. It was Mum's personal choice to have the operation. It was her personal choice to fight like hell afterwards. It was also her personal choice to stop fighting and enjoy, in her small way, the rest of what time she had left.

My personal choice, having seen the whole thing unfold, is simple. If I am in the same situation, there will be no operation, however well the chances and techniques have improved. And I will smoke another cigarette, and drink a glass of beer, be able to speak and laugh and eat normally until a short period before my time runs out. My children, having been explained the whys and wherefores of my decision know and respect this choice. They understand me. Whether they agree or not, is their personal choice, but I believe they will respect mine as I did my mother's.

So is it right to continue to help a person to carry on fighting in perhaps even worse circumstances than the above, against the odds? Or let them, or assist them even, to pass on in peace and as painlessly as possible?

I have made my choice. I understand those and respect those for differing beliefs and values in their lives. That is their choice. I believe choice should be made available to all individuals, either way, if the circumstances allow. It isn't only the victims themselves that suffer, and I want my children to remember me as I am as far as can be expected, not as someone losing the one thing doctors cannot operate away. My dignity.

It's a personal, individual choice, and for every yeah, there is a nay. For every person who calls "foul", there are those who say, "fair".

I happen to be in agreement with the thoughts of Caz on this one. If it comes as far as me being in agony..an extra dose please, switch off and say tatta.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.

best wishes

Phil

[Phil H]

But Errata - Socrates didn't have much choice as I recall? Wasn't he carrying out a death penalty, imposed by the state for blasphemy (or the classical equivalent)?

Phil

[Errata]

I would think the real pressure would be in the 20% or below survivability range. If a 68 year old man gets cancer, and with chemo and radiation has a 20% chance of surviving, thats a little complicated. Especially if he has kids with their own families. Then the question starts to become "Do I spend 100,000 dollars on a 20 % chance of living out the rest of my days, or do I end it now and give the money to my kids?" Even the kids might resent their father spending so much on such a small chance. And this doesn't even take into account HMOs, who may decide that 20% is not good enough odds to fund treatment, and then people have the choice between legally dying slowly in agony of cancer, or legally dying quickly.

The only way legal suicide works is if you do it like Socrates. Big party, surrounded by friends, miles from the nearest hospital. Anyone who can end their life under these circumstances clearly wants it. But while in the hospital there is too much doom, gloom, threat, and depression to make an unimpaired decision.

[Ally]

A doctor had written DNR on her notes. They did not try to revive her. They let her die because THEY felt she'd had enough. She was 47 years old and this was way back in 1968. I was ten years old. They didn't have the right to make that decision for her and I am worried that people in a weakened state like my mother was would be convinced that they should end their lives even if they don't want to.

Just out of curiosity, how do you know that your mom didn't request the DNR? Regardless of whether she requested it or not, doctors did all kinds of things 40 years ago they don't do today. They often didn't tell women that they had cancer because why worry them. They don't do that now. Now in order to have a DNR the patient has to sign a form consenting to DNR. Patients have more rights now than they did five decades ago. Patients have more information and knowledge at their fingertips than patients had 50 years ago.

Basing a decision on current medical decisions using common practice five decades ago, is not a rational decision. And using your mom's example as evidence of anything is misleading. Not being given a choice is what is being discussed here. By your own account, you mother wasn't given a choice. Your argument basically is, she wasn't given a choice, and that was wrong, but I shouldn't be given a choice either so that no wrongs can be done? In addition, your mom..she died. Of natural causes. You are mad that they didn't bring her back to life so I shouldn't have a chance to die in peace? Now not only do doctors have to keep you alive in spite of your will, but they have to do everything possible to resurrect you once you are gone?