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I Lied When I Said We Did Everything We Could

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Re: I Lied When I Said We Did Everything We Could

#201

Post by learc83 »

dunnevens wrote: post #186
bartread wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is true. I think that it's also a religious thing as well, and almost Christians. Other religions are more accepting of death, but Christianity has taught many to sincerely believe that Jesus himself would step into the room and heal their loved one, therefore every attempt must be made to save them. Nope. Everybody dies, with rare exception: the Bible is pretty unequivocal on that. I hate to drift so close to…

I was raised evangelical, specifically Southern Baptist. There is a relentless focus on positivity. On prayers being answered. The person, that you're replying to, got it largely correct, at least as my childhood faith goes. Sure, even the most deluded Baptists realize death is inevitable. And they're not entirely hostile to DNR. But their approach to the sanctity of life, and the countless stories of last minute mir…

I was also raised Southern Baptist (though I’m a liberal mainline protestant now) and my dad was an assistant pastor/choir director for most of my childhood. I couldn’t disagree with many aspects of Southern Baptist theology and doctrine more, but this was not my experience at all.

Sure people prayed for sick family members, but the focus was always more on repenting and being reunited in heaven than it was on staying alive via miracles. If anything, in my experience, devoutly religious Southern Baptists tend to be more accepting of death than less religious people.

>"Pulling the plug" was often considered suicide / murder, and many in my church considered it a start to mass euthanasia of the old and chronically infirm.

I agree that evangelicals tend to be very strongly against assisted suicide. Part of that is that anti-abortion activists groups are also anti-euthanasia and part of their tactics include scaring old people by convincing them that assisted suicide will eventually lead to forced euthanasia.

I don’t however believe that most or even very many evangelicals believe that removing someone from a ventilator is equivalent to suicide/murder.

Re: I Lied When I Said We Did Everything We Could

#202

Post by ggm »

Maybe they did lie, but the core point is, did they do everything they felt they should ?

Arguably no: they should have stopped, reviewed, and helped her and the family decide to withdraw treatment and die with some personal dignity, but the time for that was far earlier.

Having had two in-laws die with medical staff disrespecting their end-of-life issues (in different ways) I feel quite strongly the 'do no harm' myth is being a bit over-extended. At the end, prolonging life does harm. Withdrawing anti-anxiety drugs does harm. allowing a surgeon to go ahead and risk a catastrophic stroke and loss of identity does harm.

Re: I Lied When I Said We Did Everything We Could

#203

Post by learc83 »

mustacheemperor wrote: post #200
learc83 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is true. I think that it's also a religious thing as well, and almost Christians. Other religions are more accepting of death. In my own experience growing up in church as a pastor's kid and attending a lot of funerals, people at Christian funerals tend to be a lot more accepting/less obviously distressed than people at non-religious memorial services. I think what you're describing has more to do with the Amer…

>American scientific optimism of the 50s and 60s Sam Altman says he “fully expects” his brain to be uploaded to the cloud someday[0]. Is it any different this time, or do humans always delude ourselves about our mortality? [0] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610456/a-startup-is-pitch...

I think it's cyclical, and it's a matter of degree. I don't think very many people today believe that they will be able to upload their brains.

Re: I Lied When I Said We Did Everything We Could

#204

Post by LargeWu »

adriand wrote: post #109
mikeash wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really strange to me. Christianity also teaches that death is temporary and you’ll be reunited with your loved ones (assuming everyone is righteous). Why such a fear of death?

I grew up in a conservative, Protestant family and I might be able to shed a little bit of light on this. A few points, simply based on the environment I grew up in, which means of course this is just one perspective on just one religious denomination - I won't provide more caveats than that: - Christians take the afterlife very seriously. One must be judged by God. Regardless of how confident you are in your final d…

To your second bullet, I think those beliefs are much more prevalent in so-called Evangelical denominations, and less so in mainline Protestant denominations. As a Lutheran, for example, the notion that any Christian would be relegated to hell is basically unthinkable, and there's very little emphasis placed on it otherwise.

Re: I Lied When I Said We Did Everything We Could

#205

Post by silencio »

belorn wrote: post #188
nlh wrote: post #142

I lost my dad recently (he was 84 and lived a wonderful and healthy life, which I consider a huge win for him). He had a terribly bad stroke that left him very much alive, but without the ability to speak, read, or write. He was a professional book reviewer and writer for much of his life, and continued to read, write, and think with voracity up until the minute before his stroke (he was setting up his Series 4 Apple…

A very close relative of mine got a similar massive stroke when he was around 60 that also hit the language center. Even if I was quite young I remember that moment of frustration in the hospital when when he could not talk with either of us. The doctor explained he would unlikely survive the night, and even if he did he would not be able to leave the hospital bed. His daughter did the same however what the person in…

The decision is easier when you have conversations and put wishes in writing before they are necessary. And update them as needed.

My dad has ESRD and we've had some conversations about what he would want at the end. Many of the potential issues we've discussed involve getting 2nd+ opinions if necessary... but he also makes it clear (and I agree with him) that at some point the treatment and recovery process itself might not be worth it for an unknown recovery for him.

I think this communication respects that this is a difficult decision, and I've come to the conclusion that decisions can be reached that may not be the "best" objective decision (e.g surviving another 33 years) but it is a decision that the person supports, so that you as a survivor can be at peace with it too. So like, if my dad were in a situation similar to your relative - I already know that he would feel that the numerous procedures and years of recovery outweigh 33 more years of life. I would not seek full treatment. Knowing this makes me at peace with anything that can happen, more than anything else we could do.

I was inspired largely by Atul Gawande's book "Being Mortal" - where he talks about and discusses ways that we can figure out how to live our life at the end, rather than be worried about death.

Re: I Lied When I Said We Did Everything We Could

#206

Post by chii »

matt-attack wrote: post #199
guhcampos wrote: post #190

This. This is messed up. Much of our medicine feels like it's not meant for the patient, but for the people around the patient. We struggle to let the person go, regardless of their own - often voiceless - suffering. We all feel pain. We all fear loss. Whose choice should it be to live or to die?

Could it be an extension of the perverse concept our society reinforces throughout life, that: suicide is illegal. I feel that one rule ingrains in all citizens a notion that each of us does not have free agency over our own body. That someone else’s decision trumps our own regarding our own body. I claim this is a perverse notion and the that feelings of the family in this article are a mere extension of this pervas…

it stems from love. Nobody can truly accept their loved ones dying.

Re: I Lied When I Said We Did Everything We Could

#207

Post by licebmi__at__ »

metildaa wrote: post #38
thefifthsetpin wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did all that they could to save her from death, but in the author's opinion that's not what they should have been saving her from. As an example, they intentionally didn't save her from the agony of receiving CPR.

CPR is brutal, both for the person receiving it and the person providing it. You crack the person's ribs and end up mushifying their chest if you persist in doing CPR too long. The other thing is without an AED (a defibrillator) the success rate of CPR is quite low, one physician I know equated it to buying time for the brain, as he had never seen CPR alone bring someone back.

As far as I know (my wife is an emergency physician), despite what the name suggest, CPR is not really for "bringing back". Is a technique to keep the blood flowing so the brain doesn't suffer damage until other techniques are applied. Also, as she explained to me, the defibrillator is only used on certain kind of arrests, it can actually make things worse on others.

Re: I Lied When I Said We Did Everything We Could

#208

Post by euske »

This reminds me of this Planet Money episode about a town, where people casually talk about their terminal treatments and death. It turned out that most people chose a rather natural death when the choices are given. It was originally started by a nurse who wanted to reduce the burden of a family, but the town ended up with the lowest Medicare spending because of this community custom. It was a very thought provoking.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/02/28/283444163/epis...

Re: I Lied When I Said We Did Everything We Could

#209

Post by djidnedhxunddbd »

We had the exact opposite problem with doctors. My mother was near-unconscious, suffering intensely and we wanted it to end. The doctors could not and would not give her a quick exit. We finally got a family friend doctor to prescribe fentanyl and we administered all the patches at once and she died within 12 hours.
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