Assisted Suicide

[wisconsinguy]

There are currently 5 states that have assisted suicide laws. Two more have legislation reviewing bills. What are your thoughts regarding the issue? The laws that the 5 states have on the books are similar. !. The person that is requesting the med to end their life needs to be cognizant of what they are requesting. 2) They are to take the meds themselves. Not to be administered by a nurse, doc or other health care professional.

3. There is a waiting period from the request to filling the script. Usually about two wks. 4) Their death is expected within 6 mths. 5. It is usually done for cancer and uncontrollable pain control. But, what about mental health issues? What if I am psychotic and the voices in my head are telling me jump in front of train, or hurt others? And, I have been treated with every kind of med in/out patient treatment on earth? I am on disability because I am mentally disabled? Do I have the right to end my misery?

[bobchitown]

OK. Assuming I'm at a place where I am mentally sound but my body is not...I still tear up when I think of the show where the Dutch guy with no hope knew it was time, gathered his family and friends around, had a few last laughs and hugs and in a room full of light pulled the switch. Yes!

[+ Just Sayin]

This is something that each of us should be able to determine (assuming one has capacity to do so).

[Rudynate]

The whole thing makes me incredibly sad. I respect others' freedom to choose, but I can't imagine myself ever making that choice.

[RyanDean]

Happened to listen to a compelling podcast on this topic just this morning while on the treadmill: Criminal - Episode 17 ("Final Exit")

[Guy Fawkes]

All five states make the hoops nearly impossible to clear and none of them make allowance for: "...an unendurable incapacitating disability or unbearable and uncontrollable pain." as Switzerland allows.

 

Pain Control is mostly a misnomer and beyond a certain point it's not possible.

 

Pain Management is much more accurate. I can choose to be active with a certain level of pain or I can be in bed asleep without pain. The choice is mine; and sometimes the choice is very troublesome.

[wisconsinguy]

The whole thing makes me incredibly sad. I respect others' freedom to choose, but I can't imagine myself ever making that choice.

I never mean to make anyone sad. I am both a realest and I guess need to admit it, a senior. I have worked my entire life caring for patients in critical condition. When a person is critical, it really turns into caring for the family and friends. There were countless nights that I would come on to my shift where the previous nurse would say, " I knew u where working, pls take this patient." It was not my ability to save the patient, but to help the family get through this end of life situation for their loved one. All I am saying, we need to make arrangements for our demise. I will not end up on tube feedings, in a nursing home, after my stroke, for a couple of yrs, until I die from organ failure.

[Rudynate]

I never mean to make anyone sad. I am both a realest and I guess need to admit it, a senior. I have worked my entire life caring for patients in critical condition. When a person is critical, it really turns into caring for the family and friends. There were countless nights that I would come on to my shift where the previous nurse would say, " I knew u where working, pls take this patient." It was not my ability to save the patient, but to help the family get through this end of life situation for their loved one. All I am saying, we need to make arrangements for our demise. I will not end up on tube feedings, in a nursing home, after my stroke, for a couple of yrs, until I die from organ failure.

 

 

That's what advance directives are for.

 

Believe me I understand how awful a person's protracted death can be for the person and those around them. I was an Army medic. My first job after the army was as an orderly in a VA hospital. I worked on an ENT floor caring for guys who had had grisly surgical procedures for head and neck cancers i.e. having half of their faces surgically removed. In spite of this treatment, they all died anyway, miserable, slow protracted deaths. Some of them spent the last year or two of their lives, for the most part, in the hospital.

 

And I've also been here since day one of the AIDS epidemic. I was a volunteer for Project Inform. One of the things that we did for people, sort of under the table, was to redistribute drugs, that were left over after someone died, to others who needed them. A guy called and asked me to come to his place of business because his partner had died and he had a grocery sack full of meds. I got them, took them home and sorted them. Among them were two FULL bottles of Roxanol (liquid morphine). I mentioned it to a friend of mine who was sick with AIDS and he asked me to give him one of the bottles, so he could have it on hand to make his exit. I told him, no that I couldn't, that I respected his choice to end his life but that I couldn't be a participant. He was furious with me and we didn't speak for a long time. He is alive and well today.

[wisconsinguy]

The Advance Directive idea is a good one of course. I have mine all set to go. However, there is major lack of completion of these forms. I find people may pick them up, but they end in a drawer or the circular file.

 

Regarding the five states that adapted the Assisted Suicide laws. I disagree that the regulations that are adapted make it too troublesome to get "approved." All five states have pretty much adapted the same structure in what is required. I have a good friend who is nurse in adult home care from Washington St. She recently cared for her first patient who took her own life. She had a genetic, and terminal cardiomyopathy. She vowed she was not going to spend her last few months fighting for every breath like her father.

 

Rudynate, I cared for beautiful little 8th old girl. She was born with so many disabling diagnosis. She spent almost all that time in a Pediatric ICU. The Grandmother had full custody. Grandma made the decision to make her a DNR, to bring her home. She of course had a trach and a ventilator. Tube fed, with other lines as well. I cared for her 12 hrs a day. On arrival one day, I came upon her in Status Epilepticus. Of course it's the weekend. The pulmonologist who was on call was someone I had never met. I knew nothing about her, and she knew nothing of me. So she had to believe I knew what I was talking. She said of course she would need to come to the hospital. It ment the baby would need to be taken to a local ER, and medflighted back to hospital. So I am talking to the doctor, I am explaining things to Grandma. She states baby is not going back to the hospital. She says, "she not going back to the hospital to poked and prodded anymore. I want her removed from the ventilator. She is already a DNR." Sooo, the Doc gives me an order to remove her from the vent. Baby had Morphine ordered for other issues. The Morphine was increased in frequency and timing to keep her as comfortable as possible. After hanging up with the physician, and removing her from the vent, Grandma asks me, "How much Morphine would it take to help put her to sleep?" I told her what I thought, but I also inserted that would not that. The little girl died about three hrs after. I was liberal with the MS. Grandma of course asked that I remove all her tubes, lines, and trach. Also that give her a bath, since she had family coming to the house. Of course I did. An incredibly sad day. But after I bathed her, and put a fresh onesie on, wrapped her in her blankie, and put her in grams arms, that we both made perfect decisions that day. We where her advocates that day.

[Rudynate]

Another sad, slippery-slope story. I only told mine to show that my distaste for assisted suicide is informed by real-world experience. Because I have a distaste for it doesn't mean that I think that people should be prevented from doing it. I am also, for the most part, anti-abortion. However, I don't think that any woman, having made that choice, should be prevented from exercising it. Thus, even though I am anti-abortion, I am pro-choice.

[Bluray2]

Would forum participants say that gay individuals have special, unique problems when

it comes to either hospice, palliative, or end-of-life care, as well as assisted suicide?

[wisconsinguy]

I would say yes. And yet, it would be hard to pull out the reasons. I am biased. Over 40+ years in my profession, I have seen the evolution of pain control in patients. Both in patients that had surgery, to many that had a terminal illness, such as my parents. I walked many a mile, back and forth to a patients bedside to make sure they were comfortable after administering a narcotic. If it did not work...I was on the phone to either increase the dose, or change the med. I would lump together hospice, palliative, or end-of-life care together. Assisted suicide is different. I support all of them. It was a privilege to sit at the side of my ex-wife's Aunt who was dying from multiple tumors. She was in a assisted living home, and hospice was involved. She was eighty-one, and one the most beautiful, caring, and giving persons on the planet. She had narcotics ordered ad lib. Over the course of a couple of days, I was hunting down the med tech to give her another dose of narcotic. Did that hasten her demise? Possibly... but I did my best to keep her comfortable. This is really all I'm saying... we do not have exit this world in pain. Even if we do not support the options a person chooses, it is their choice. Back to your interesting question. I do believe gay individuals have problems with end of life options.

[Rudynate]

Like it or not, family becomes exceedingly important at the end of a person's life. And gays are often isolated from their families. I volunteered at Maitri Hospice, a hospice for people with AIDS that was sponsored by Hartford Street Zen Center. It was very common for very sick men to have absolutely no contact with their family, and to have, essentially, no one. They died, the Zen Center absorbed the cost of cremating their remains, and there was no one to claim them. The Zen Center kept these remains in an honored place in the Zen-do.

[Becket]

I am definitely moving to Oregon or some similar state very soon. I want to be able to have that option when the time comes. cheers

[wisconsinguy]

I know an elderly couple that have dual residency, and Washington is one of those for this exact reason!

[Frequentflier]

Like it or not, family becomes exceedingly important at the end of a person's life. And gays are often isolated from their families. I volunteered at Maitri Hospice, a hospice for people with AIDS that was sponsored by Hartford Street Zen Center. It was very common for very sick men to have absolutely no contact with their family, and to have, essentially, no one. They died, the Zen Center absorbed the cost of cremating their remains, and there was no one to claim them. The Zen Center kept these remains in an honored place in the Zen-do.

 

Good for you to have volunteered there, more of us should do volunteer work. What you described about patients dying alone without family is very sad and hopefully happening less often.

[Rudynate]

Good for you to have volunteered there, more of us should do volunteer work. What you described about patients dying alone without family is very sad and hopefully happening less often.

 

It's a completely different world since then - antivirals, destigmatization of AIDS, the push for LGBTs to come out, repeal of "don't ask, don't tell," growing assimilation of LGBTs into the mainstream, gay marriage, gay adoption have all hugely changed the landscape. The progress made is immeasurable.

[wisconsinguy]

It's a completely different world since then - antivirals, destigmatization of AIDS, the push for LGBTs to come out, repeal of "don't ask, don't tell," growing assimilation of LGBTs into the mainstream, gay marriage, gay adoption have all hugely changed the landscape. The progress made is immeasurable.

I so agree. I have what I believe, is a perfect example. My oldest grandchild, who is a freshmen in high school, earlier this year went to high school with a T-shirt with a rainbow on it. It read..."I will not live a lie." The same day, he mailed all his relatives that he was gay. Out of more that 600 students, there was not one backlash. Two teachers commented, "good for you." I am sooo proud of him. The world is coming around.!!! And, he has an outstanding voice! Comes from his "Pumpha." I hope I can wheel my wheelchair up to the stage when he opens on Broadway!