Refusal to Gte Medical Help

[Instrument 41]

If someone has a disease that can be treatable, but they know that ultimately it will take them out. And while prolonging life, the quality of life will be harsh. Is refusal to get help that same as suicide??

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by Instrument 41

If someone has a disease that can be treatable, but they know that ultimately it will take them out. And while prolonging life, the quality of life will be harsh. Is refusal to get help that same as suicide??

I see how it can be considered to be suicide but end of day we all die.

Quality of life is a personal issue that only the affected can make assuming that they are still of a clear mind.

I do not believe in prolonging life/agony at all costs.

[Laneco]

Suicide is when you choose how you are going to die (a gun, drug overdose, jumping in front of a bus). By refusing medical help for a terminal condition, or even a severe chronic condition, is not choosing how you die. It is choosing how you live.

We are beings driven by free will. This should be one of our life choices as well.

angela (ok, I live in a right to die state...)

[Zeke]

I do think about this. Id' say if it's cancer, see what the initial treatment can do. In my mind, no need to go to great lengths if reemission is not reasonably achievable.

Dealing with this right now with a friend.

angela, well said.

[Rikao4]

if you cannot avoid the upcoming exit..
you should have some say in the ride getting there..

Rika

[UconnTim97]

Yes, well said Angela.

We just experienced this with my aunt in the last few months. She chose how she was going to live the short time she had left after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.

[peppy]

These choices we have to make in the worst of circumstances are nobody's business. The choices to treat and not treat are not black and white, they all seem gray to me.

My family made some hard decisions early in the summer with mom (we stopped treating the Alzheimer's) and I will always believe these are private matters.

[jyl]

I think declining treatment for oneself is a private matter. As is declining treatment for an aged person for whom you are the decision-maker. When my grandfather was dying at age 99 y/o, we (his kids and grandkids) met in the hospital and made decisions about his treatment that, I believe, were humane and rational.

An interesting question is declining treatment for one's children. This is something of an issue here in OR. We have a local religious group that believes in healing through prayer, and thus refuses to seek or permit medical attention for their ill children. Members of this group have been prosecuted a few times in the past few years, after one child or another has died of easily treatable illnesses. I haven't followed the trials closely, I think they usually get convicted but I'm not sure what then happens.

[pwd72s]

I'm with Angela on this one. Cindy's Uncle just passed. Great guy. WWII vet, 1st cav., pacific. Bronze star, purple heart. Came home, started a successful insurance agency, now managed by his son. Terminal cancer...he chose to say "enough", did not want to check out in a care facility. Checked out in his coast home overlooking the Pacific, full of single malt. He did it all his way...more power to him!

[legion]

The last three days of my grandmother's life cost something like $100,000, with the drugs, the life support, the team of doctors...three days she wasn't concious for. Three days that she couldn't enjoy. Three days of which no one else could enjoy her company.

It didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, but the doctors convinced my grandfather it was what was done in these situations.

I completely understand if someone choses to avoid the possibility of such an end when they still can.

[Instrument 41]

So is it foolish to base this decision solely on the cost of the medical care? Such a waste of money in my opinion. All the examples have been of the elderly. what if the person is in their mid 40"s. Does that make a difference?

[legion]

I think we've reached the fallacy of the Hypocratic Oath.

In the absence of direction, doctors will generally act to keep someone alive, no matter the cost or quality of life. I don't think this is a bad thing. But now we have the technology to keep someone alive, sometimes for years, without a functioning brain. We have the technology to keep someone alive for a few extra days or hours, but they are experiencing excruciating pain, so they have to be sedated. We can often bypass the failing organ just long enough for another to fail.

I don't think that the doctors are wrong for fighting for life in the absence of direction, but I think they should also be able to council people on the realistic consequences of taking such action.

Who should make end of life decisions? Ideally the person in question makes a decision ahead of time. Otherwise it falls to the family, who often won't make a tough decision when the time comes.

[McLovin]

Originally Posted by Instrument 41

If someone has a disease that can be treatable, but they know that ultimately it will take them out. And while prolonging life, the quality of life will be harsh. Is refusal to get help that same as suicide??

No. It happens every day.

[stomachmonkey]

My father had a DNR that we did not know about.

He arrested in the ambulance while being transferred from his local ER to Cornell in NYC.

Wound up brain dead.

Fortunately for him he had a lateral aortic aneurism that had started leaking so life support was not going to work for very long. He was only on it for a couple of hours.

[M.D. Holloway]

Its a 'Living Will'