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Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

latimes.com

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Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#71

Post by alexibm »

scotty79 wrote: post #42

My SO is currently in hospice after 6 brain surgeries for brain cancer (4 over last year with her state gradually deteriorating). For the last year she was severly disabled and had to be help with sitting down, standing up, lying down and adjusting pillows and blankets as she had very limited use of her hands and general body coordination. She had to be kept safe while walking. It wasn't as good life as she had befor…

Please, take my sympathies. It is one of the most heart breaking stories I have read on HN. Stay strong.

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#72

Post by tremon »

gekkeboom wrote: post #45
D_Alex wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why people continue to allow this is beyond me. If, in the end, the patient recovers, what a happy ending that would be! And we might learn how to better assist others in this condition. The alternative is giving up forever on such cases. This is also partly why I lean "against" on euthanasia.

And I'm so happy I live in a country that permits Euthanasia. And the rules for it are clear: (some of them) 1. Intolerable suffering 2. No outlook on any improvement There are cases where people recover after years being in coma. However, there are many, many, many more people in the same state who never recover, who are just plants. Life is not sacred. Quality of life is.

And the rules for it are clear

3. Patient's affirmative consent (antedated if need be)

I too am happy to live in a country with a humane policy towards voluntary end-of-life, but this is not a clear cut case where euthanasia would apply: this is a patient with at least some consciousness left, but that no court would find competent to make decisions, and with no known relatives (up until the reporter found one).

The question then becomes not only whether the required conditions for euthanasia apply, but also whether the state-appointed legal guardian has the mandate to make such a fundamental decision on behalf of the patient. Personally speaking, granting that kind of power to a government representative is not something I'm comfortable with.

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#73

Post by algaeontoast »

I’ve signed legal documents to prevent this happening to me in the future. I have not signed a DNR, but I’m certain I would never want to be kept alive arguably against my own will and the will of the natural world.

After watching my grandfather succumb to Alzheimer’s I’m relatively certain we’ve taken some forms of hospice and medical science too far. Albeit, extending the life of our bodies past the reasonable lifetime of our brains.

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#75

Post by inflatableDodo »

scotty79 wrote: post #42

My SO is currently in hospice after 6 brain surgeries for brain cancer (4 over last year with her state gradually deteriorating). For the last year she was severly disabled and had to be help with sitting down, standing up, lying down and adjusting pillows and blankets as she had very limited use of her hands and general body coordination. She had to be kept safe while walking. It wasn't as good life as she had befor…

Can she use an eye tracker sometimes? At least then she'd have a line of communication and be able to still watch netflix. I been setting up a tobii ( https://www.tobiidynavox.com ) recently for a friend who thankfully has now got enough control back below the neck to use a dabber with a touchscreen. It didn't take me too much practice with the thing to be able to search for cat pictures on google, using dasher.

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#76

Post by dsfyu404ed »

roywiggins wrote: post #68
adrianN wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine that there are legitimate reasons not to use anesthesia on babies who show no signs of remembering the pain when they've become able to communicate. Anesthesia is not without risk, probably doubly so for a developing brain.

It seems like a case of motivated reasoning. Doctors needed to operate on babies; anesthetizing them would be hard. So they decided that babies can't feel pain and never investigated methods of anesthesia on babies.

More like anesthetizing them would be risky and they're not gonna remember it so it's not worth the increased risk to their life since infants are already fairly fragile and saving their life is the primary goal.

It's not just "it's hard and we're lazy so lets make up an excuse" like you seem to be implying.

Edit: Since apparently it wasn't clear, we're talking about the timeline when this issue was hashed out, so the 1980s. Anesthesia carried substantially more risk then because back then we didn't understand it nearly as well.

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#77

Post by mikorym »

scotty79 wrote: post #42

My SO is currently in hospice after 6 brain surgeries for brain cancer (4 over last year with her state gradually deteriorating). For the last year she was severly disabled and had to be help with sitting down, standing up, lying down and adjusting pillows and blankets as she had very limited use of her hands and general body coordination. She had to be kept safe while walking. It wasn't as good life as she had befor…

The (well off) CEO of a company I work for went through something similar. Life can get really hard no matter who you are. We are guests to the world on borrowed time and life is precious and fleeting.

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#78

Post by jdietrich »

falsedan wrote: post #50
adrianN wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically we don't know whether general anesthesia actually prevents you from feeling pain, or whether it just prevents you from forming memories. As far as I know at least.

General anesthesia is usually a combination of multiple drugs. We know exactly what each drug does, medical science isn’t so good at explaining why the drugs have these actions. anesthetists combine these drugs to suit the requirements of the procedure and the patient Anesthesia usually includes drugs with distinct, separate actions, like an analgesic (to block pain receptors), muscle relaxants (so patients can be mo…

>We know exactly what each drug does

We know enough about them to use them safely, but most anaesthetic drugs are somewhere on the spectrum from "not fully understood" to "a complete mystery". Science knows how anaesthesia works in the same sense that I know how a car works - I can push the pedals and turn the wheels with sufficient proficiency to get to the grocery store in one piece, but I'll be damned if I can explain what's happening under the hood.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2778226/

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#79

Post by razki »

scotty79 wrote: post #42

My SO is currently in hospice after 6 brain surgeries for brain cancer (4 over last year with her state gradually deteriorating). For the last year she was severly disabled and had to be help with sitting down, standing up, lying down and adjusting pillows and blankets as she had very limited use of her hands and general body coordination. She had to be kept safe while walking. It wasn't as good life as she had befor…

I never comment on HN but this story compelled me to. Stay strong, I hope life improves even a little bit for you and your SO.

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#80

Post by dnjdrbdhdbs »

scotty79 wrote: post #42

My SO is currently in hospice after 6 brain surgeries for brain cancer (4 over last year with her state gradually deteriorating). For the last year she was severly disabled and had to be help with sitting down, standing up, lying down and adjusting pillows and blankets as she had very limited use of her hands and general body coordination. She had to be kept safe while walking. It wasn't as good life as she had befor…

My mother was in this situation and with the help of a doctor we gave her a fentanyl overdose to help her avoid weeks of pointless suffering.
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