Right to die

Re: Right to die

Hannah Wynne Richards — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 08:16:10 GMT

All you can do is be there. Many of us have been in this situation - and are thinking of you.

Wynne

Re: Right to die

Clare Tapsfield-Wright — Sun, 03 Aug 2014 23:37:13 GMT

Dear Karen , I was in the hospice with my father when he died last year. There is nothing anyone can say to help but I am sure everyone who has read your post wishes a peaceful end for your father and sends you their unspoken support . I would echo George in saying that hearing seems to last when you think they are completely unaware of everything else. Being there for him now will be such a comfort to you in the days to come . Take care of yourself too .

Re: Right to die

Emily Nightingale — Sun, 03 Aug 2014 18:14:27 GMT

Karen, I'm thinking of you. I hope that the next few days are as easy to bear as possible. I am glad your sister is on her way. At times like this, there is strength in numbers.

With hope for a peaceful passing for your father.

/ Emily

Re: Right to die

karen jones — Sun, 03 Aug 2014 17:49:14 GMT

[quote user="George Cooper"][quote user="karen jones"]Sitting in hospice watching my father slowly die from dehydration .he is comfortable and unconscious but have found sitting here watching him breath with periods of apnoea is one of the worse things in my life. The feeling of helplessness is difficult . I have already told the doctor that it is cruel and u could fix the situation with a bottle out my car but am helpless in the face of ethics . The nurses are wonderful but we are all now just thinking let it be soon.

[/quote] Karen, I have to respond, even if merely to utter some utterly useless aphorisms - but in your circumstances I hope that the final frontier is reached swiftly, calmly, peacefully and with dignity. One thought - gleaned from reading over the years about the 'process' of dying - would be to tell your Dad that you're OK, and that it is all right for him to let go. Apparently the deeply held instinct for survival can be so strong even in those who are heavily sedated and seemingly comatose, and giving permission to slip away can bring some sort of easement. Good luck - and keep talking to him.

[/quote][quote user="George Cooper"][quote user="karen jones"]Sitting in hospice watching my father slowly die from dehydration .he is comfortable and unconscious but have found sitting here watching him breath with periods of apnoea is one of the worse things in my life. The feeling of helplessness is difficult . I have already told the doctor that it is cruel and u could fix the situation with a bottle out my car but am helpless in the face of ethics . The nurses are wonderful but we are all now just thinking let it be soon.

[/quote] Thanks for your thought, he's still going, I think he's waiting for my sister to come back from Spain tomorrow.

Re: Right to die

George Cooper — Sun, 03 Aug 2014 11:24:39 GMT

[quote user="karen jones"]Sitting in hospice watching my father slowly die from dehydration .he is comfortable and unconscious but have found sitting here watching him breath with periods of apnoea is one of the worse things in my life. The feeling of helplessness is difficult . I have already told the doctor that it is cruel and u could fix the situation with a bottle out my car but am helpless in the face of ethics . The nurses are wonderful but we are all now just thinking let it be soon.

Re: Right to die

karen jones — Sat, 02 Aug 2014 18:20:12 GMT

Sitting in hospice watching my father slowly die from dehydration .he is comfortable and unconscious but have found sitting here watching him breath with periods of apnoea is one of the worse things in my life. The feeling of helplessness is difficult . I have already told the doctor that it is cruel and u could fix the situation with a bottle out my car but am helpless in the face of ethics . The nurses are wonderful but we are all now just thinking let it be soon.

Re: Right to die

George Cooper — Sat, 02 Aug 2014 09:06:17 GMT

[quote user="Anthony Todd"]

[quote user="George Cooper"]There were one or two GPs who didn't realise that.........[/quote]

Me too, one of my nurse's mother had advanced cancer and was in agony but the doctor would not increase her morphine "in case she became addicted"!

I kid you not!

[/quote] This encapsulates what was so inspiring about the Hospice system. Their attitude was - let's obliterate the pain with, say, morphine and IF there's constipation, well, we'll deal with that when it happens. We'll use Drug X, and IF there's nausea, or vomiting we will attend to that when it happens. All this, rather then being paralysed into inaction just in case some adverse side effect happened. There were two major issues as I saw it. The first was that pain was treated as the absolute priority, and was obliterated completely, albeit with pretty hefty sedation accompanying, and the second was to settle anxiety. This latter is understandably common in Hospice patients in varying degrees, and while the occasional bouts of anger and frustration at the "Why me?" thought process would always bottom out and normality ensue, there were times when mounting anxiety escalated uncontrollably, which is when the profound effects of midazolam were invoked. In fact I recall one evening becoming concerned that things were becoming increasingly 'beyond reach' and I commented to one of the nursing team that if this was one of my patients, it would have had a hefty dollop of ACP by this time - or words to that effect! Her response was to tell me that, actually, as we spoke, the loaded syringe was advancing rapidly toward the I/V line. The senior nursing staff were authorised to make the call clinically without the necessity for contacting the Dr because each scenario had been pre-computed and written up in the patient notes.

Re: Right to die

Anthony Todd — Sat, 02 Aug 2014 07:11:14 GMT

[quote user="George Cooper"]There were one or two GPs who didn't realise that.........[/quote]

Me too, one of my nurse's mother had advanced cancer and was in agony but the doctor would not increase her morphine "in case she became addicted"!

I kid you not!

Re: Right to die

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 23:00:33 GMT

[quote user="HERETIC"]He tried refusing to eat but was force fed.[/quote]

That is awful. Appalling.

And strange, when Irish terrorists on hunger strike are not force fed.

Re: Right to die

HERETIC — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 19:27:59 GMT

My father ,who had been a GP,took 2 years to die after his stroke. He suffered recurrent urinary tract infections and falls. He was unable to stay in his own home. Every time I saw him he said "they should have let me go".He tried refusing to eat but was force fed. When he pulled his drip lines out they were reinserted and when he had no more veins he was given fluids intraperitoneally. He was refused admission to a hospice because they were "only for people with cancer" All good humane stuff! The saddest thing after his death was finding his little suicide kit hidden in the back of his wardrobe. He never had a chance to use it. Spare all of us an end like this.

Re: Right to die

Glen McIntosh — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 19:07:30 GMT

This talk is relevant to this discussion, and quite interesting:

One of the points he makes is that the whole euthanasia/right to die issue is a sideshow. Apparently, even when euthanasia is freely available, only 0.5% of the population make use of these services.

Re: Right to die

George Cooper — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 17:44:43 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]

George's experience of hospices mean his thoughts on this difficult subject are valuable.

Wynne

[/quote] Cheers Wynne. One of the most illuminating discussions, and certainly closest to my own 'philosophy' of treatment was that they will use whatever medicine in whatever dose at whatever time it is most appropriate for the PATIENT. In other words, they treat off-license, off dose, off-academia and don't treat blood results or X-ray results! I found that so refreshing in this world where the fashion decreed by current academic thought stifles remembering that a human being (or an animal) is to be on the receiving end. I also found the calm common sense of MacMillan Nurses, District Nurses, and the other hands-on (name escapes me) Nurses to be invaluable. They suggested that, instead of being hide-bound by the stipulated dose of Oramorph, one should simply dose to effect, whatever that might be, since it was all used by the body in the abolition of the pain. There were one or two GPs who didn't realise that.........

Re: Right to die

Hannah Wynne Richards — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 16:55:27 GMT

George's experience of hospices mean his thoughts on this difficult subject are valuable.

Wynne

Re: Right to die

Mark Holmes — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 15:43:41 GMT

You don't need to believe in an afterlife but I prefer to not out of a fear of death but it's just more fun and should I choose to believe in Fairies as well then I will. Odd though that Science cannot tell us what 63% of the universe is and cannot even see it.

Re: Right to die

Bob Russell — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 15:27:49 GMT

We have a semi-retired consultant surgeon who works in a hospice. He has horrifying tales of patients that keep undertaking treatments to keep them alive despite (on occasions) crying to be allowed to go.

The hospice staff are great but the medical advisors seem to be unable to leave nature alone to take its course. They should be spending more time considering the patients welfare and not trying to prove how clever they are.

Pain relief as required and without upper limits plus the option to pre-plan a dignified (if there is such a thing) death at a time of their choosing. I have no fear of being dead, have not great enthusiasm to get there quickly but the bit in between being alive and dead frightens the sh*t out of me!

My uncle (a vet) lived the last year of his life in misery as a result of motor neurone disease. When a family breathes a collective sigh of relief when a much loved relative dies surely something has to be wrong!

Re: Right to die

Martin Atkinson — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 15:20:40 GMT

[quote user="Mark Holmes"]Death to me is similar - we have no knowledge of what comes next. People can have their beliefs but we have no knowledge what if anything does. Fearing death is a bit like the fear if leaving the box - understandable but potentially self defeating.[/quote]Why do you need the believe there is some after-life?There is absolutely nothing other than superstition and religious nonsense to suggest there is. Accept you will go to sleep (minus the dreams) and never wake up. Surely that is better than worrying whether you're going to heaven or hell or how many virgins there will be when you get there. Heck I've had a good life, why do I want any more? Get over that hurdle and there is nothing to fear.

Re: Right to die

Mark Holmes — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 14:58:30 GMT

My thoughts on death are thus - if you have a dog and keep it in a box it's whole life and then after 10 years open the box the dog probably won't leave of its own accord for fear of the unknown. Death to me is similar - we have no knowledge of what comes next. People can have their beliefs but we have no knowledge what if anything does. Fearing death is a bit like the fear if leaving the box - understandable but potentially self defeating.

Re: Right to die

George Cooper — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 14:42:15 GMT

Fascinating, and useful debate, and a subject that has exercised me for years, ever since a colleague lost his wife to metastasised breast cancer, and ended up with a fractured leg along with all the secondaries. I asked him how he had felt about euthanasia in her case, and he commented that he had had offers of 'help' from the medics (this was many years ago). What stumped me then, and continues so to do, was his reply that "for every bad day there is a good day". Whilst I am passionate that we should all be allowed the CHOICE of having a good death, after a good life, it is the timing of that death that I cannot get straight. More recently the wife of my friend in the band developed firstly lung cancer then very shortly brain cancer, and died in the Hospice (following an intervention by her son who turned the syringe driver up a touch). A couple of weeks after her death I had to attend their aged horse, their first, and some time in the wee small hours had to send it on its way with a decent dose of barbiturate. As the old horse snickered its last, and as he lent on the stable door he muttered "That's what they should've done for Nick a fortnight before she died". Despite having been closely involved, the wasn't a moment when I felt that I personally could have made that call. The most recent was, of course, with my own wife, who, in the terminal stages of pancreatic cancer was cared for in the Hospice, and in the final few days was kept "comfortable" by assiduous use of midazolam and diamorphine. In that way, her 'passing' was as 'good' as it could be. What I found interesting when reflecting upon the whole thing, was my own reaction and my need. At no time, even when she was unable to communicate did I want her to die. Just to feel a warm hand, and to be able to talk to her was precious, despite the inevitable outcome. (Apologies for the lack of paragraphs - iPad disease). For my own part, as has been said elsewhere, if I wish to imbibe a bottle of Euthatal after a dreadful diagnosis it demands that I am still of sound-ish body and mind to be able to do it! So, in summary, there should be CHOICE, but how the heck it is safe-guarded and administered is for a better brain than mine.

Re: Right to die

Tony Knapp — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 00:16:19 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]

Tony I would say that euthanasia officer (or angel of death) sounds like the perfect job - for a psychopath!

Wynne

[/quote]

By that logic the people who work in Hospices, in elderly care, mortitians, police, along with doctors, nurses and vets are all perfect jobs for psychopaths, all these careers have high exposure to suffering, disease and death.

I don't think pursing a career where you end suffering makes you a psycopath, I do think it would be a very difficult job to do, especially as the reason I don't find animal euthanasia so completly draining (although I'm not claiming it's a walk in the park) is because I have seen owners who do the alternative and try everything for an animal that fails miserably, or those that bring their animal in after weeks to months of suffering becasue they were hoping they would go "naturally in their sleep". Those cases are worse then euthanasia, they can really take it out of me, especially if it was the RSPCA that had to bring them in.

Re: Right to die

Bob Russell — Wed, 23 Jul 2014 09:26:27 GMT

If I was able to get on a plane and travel to Switzerland then I think there would be a fighting chance that I would not be ready to go. Life has its ups and downs but on balance I reckon it is a lot better than the alternative and I am in no hurry to go anywhere!

What I do want to be able to do is lay down guidelines regarding when and how I shuffle off this mortal coil (die, become deceased, permanently become an ex-vet etc).

Some individuals may decide to bow out gracefully at an earlier stage than others but if there are suitable non-medical safeguards what the heck. They are only going to do it once!

Re: Right to die

Utlendigur — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 19:46:38 GMT

[quote user="GrooveJet"]Yes it opens up the possibility of certain individuals perhaps ending their lives earlier than they otherwise would have, [/quote]

At the moment one of the arguments put forward by people who wish to have the right to an assisted suicide in this country is that they are forced to end their lives earlier than they otherwise would like, because they have to be able to travel to the dignitas clinic under their own steam, or risk their family or friends being charged or even prosecuted for assisting a suicide - eg Debbie Purdy

Re: Right to die

Miriam Lodewyks — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 18:57:34 GMT

I vote "for" because I feel that the net-benefit would out-weigh the net-risk of abuse of the system.

Yes it opens up the possibility of certain individuals perhaps ending their lives earlier than they otherwise would have, but it would still be some sort of "choice". Having no choice at all strikes me as morally MORE abhorrent, and resultant in far greater suffering on the whole. No?

Re: Right to die

Hannah Wynne Richards — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 16:12:08 GMT

Martin Sorry for being over-sensitive

Wynne

Re: Right to die

Thomas Johnson — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 15:38:28 GMT

[quote user="Martin Atkinson"]

Please do not play the God/religion card here unless you want my blood to boil. Somehow we have largely managed to avoid it so far possibly because we are mostly rational thinking and scientifically educated people. Michael rather more diplomatically put the point across than I would have done. I will try and bite my tongue.

[/quote]

I had been holding off the religious arguement as I know it's not going to cut any ice with a lot of people, I just wanted to point out that Michael's post suggesting it was hypocritical for a religion to allow doctors to treat/cure someone, but not to end someone's life, was incorrect.

I am opposed to voluntary euthanasia, but more because of concerns over how it would be safeguarded, than because of my Christian faith.

Re: Right to die

Martin Atkinson — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 13:35:37 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]

I was merely noting that it was INTERESTING that even the 2 Archbishops were NOT playing the God/religion card!

Wynne

[/quote]I t wasn't you I was referring to Wynne hence I quoted the entire development of the relevant post - you're getting touchy!