Quote:
Originally posted by Skunk:
You can not be 'pain-free' and self-aware at the same time with many, many terminial illnesses - I'm trying to square how its dignified to be on such high a dosage of painkillers that a patient has trouble remembering their own name when they are conscious.
I really find it hard to believe that anyone who finds themself requiring the assistance of another to fulfill their own lavatory requirements as 'dignified'. Walk up and down any cancer ward and you'll find all sorts of examples of such dignified living.
I think that you would have to see euthanasia in action and speak to both the patient and the relatives concerned before making your mind up on this - unless of course, you are ill-disposed to the idea as result of religion.
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I have required assistance to use a lavatory. I have lain on a table, naked, lying in a pool of my own shit and blood in a hospital. I have fallen asleep and woken up in my own vomit in a hospital. I have needed assistance to walk down a hall, shower, shit, eat. All in hosptial.
I have lain for hours on your so derided mind numbing morphine, in your so derided 'vegetative state'.
I have screamed for hours due to burning pain without painkillers in hospital. I have also been unable to breathe due to severe knifelike pain in my lungs. I have felt the relief of pathadine and morphine. Felt numbing lack of care for anything due to blood loss.
I have been tested, and tested and tested. Nuclear medicine, berium meals, cat scans, blood test after blood test, had my shit tested, urine tested, x-ray after x-ray.
During my times in hospital I have spoken to a man in hosptial without a functioning stomach, who was in hospital for over a year. I've watched my Great Grandfather lose his mental faculties and die at age 99; watched my paternal grandfather lose his faculties and dignity dying of cancer in a nursing home; seen my own father lie in a coma for three months, visited my aunt in a mental institution due to severe brain damage, and yet seen the art she's created and the love she has had for my sister.
I've also seen my uncle die due to cancer, and yet spend the last year of his life, coming to know Jesus and connecting with my father (his brother) in a way they never did before.
Life.
Priorities shift when you lose the ability to walk on your own. When you are unable to stand up. What life is, the definition of life can shift radically. I've been one of these relatives you've asked me to consult. I've experienced the lack of dignity you seem to abhor and fear. I certainly did not enjoy morphine,
but it was better than being dead. It was still life. I got off it as soon as I was able, but it was still preferable to not existing. I was fed intravenously, unable to swallow even water, but I had life. I may not have had any dignity, but I had life.
Life is such a gift, and each succeeding moment an undeserved miracle I treasure. To throw away that gift... would be the highest insult to those that have loved me, to those that brought me into the world, to my God who gave me the spark of life. I owe it to those that know me to stay alive. OWE it. I owe it to those that have invested time in me, to perpetuate my own existence. My life is not my own. My gifts as a musician are not my own. If they bring others enjoyment, I must stay alive and keep creating so that their life is enhanced.
That is my perspective. It has helped keep me alive during my own darkness.
Finding reason to live is one of the most vital things we can do.
[ 10-22-2003, 01:15 AM: Message edited by: Yorick ]