It's getting harder to die • Hacker News Board

Re: It's getting harder to die

#201

Post by dghlsakjg » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 9:13 PM UTC

asynchronous wrote: post #177

dghlsakjg wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the real world, most people struggle to get permission to opt for medical assistance in dying. Nobody is getting coerced into suicide.

Canada would like a word with you

I live in Canada. I also have google.

You are referring to an incident where a caseworker mentioned that MAID is an option to a permanently disabled veteran suffering from pain, and it was deemed out of scope for their job. The policy has now changed so that caseworkers are not allowed to even bring up MAID. No one was coerced into the option.

The outcome of the incident you are citing is that it is now less accessible for people to learn about the option.

Meanwhile there are cases across Canada where people have been blocked from getting MAID because of religious hospitals, outside objectors, and debates about what kind of permanent illness qualifies even if two doctors and the patient have all agreed.

The process is not fast, requires psychological assessment, and must be signed off by a doctor.

There is precisely no evidence that anyone has ever undergone MAID when they weren’t 100% consenting and having made there own decision.

Re: It's getting harder to die

#202

Post by manfromchicago » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 9:21 PM UTC

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #77

I'd like dying to be as easy as flicking a switch. Medically-assisted suicide ought to be available to anyone (not only of sound mind and not only with a terminal condition), and at any time. People ought to have the right to die, just like they have the right to water, food, and shelter. In most countries it is currently easier to take other people's lives than to take one's own. People ought to be able to step into…

I greatly offended my mother's psychiatrist once with a similar thought. He was using my mother's suicidality as proof that she needed inpatient treatment.

I told him - "She suffers from migraines, and for 3 out of 4 weeks in an average month she must spend the entire day immobile in a dark room. There are no treatments in the near term which are expected to improve her outlook. The pain is debilitating. Doctor, who is "insane" - the person who wants a way out of the constant agony, or the person who says "More, please!""

I believe that the right to life as enshrined in the Constitution (and endowed by my Creator) must, inherently, also include the right to end that life, if a man (or woman) so chooses.

Re: It's getting harder to die

#203

Post by drrskino » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 9:29 PM UTC

drrskino wrote: post #164

drowsspa wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nihilism leading to the two world wars and opinions being coded in the DNA are definitely two of the takes of all time

Opinion and perspective are closely tied to cultural upbringing which is closely tied to race and ethnicity.

We hear about demographics of people and their beliefs "dying off" all the time. It does happen.

Re: It's getting harder to die

#204

Post by LorenPechtel » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 9:32 PM UTC

celdon25 wrote: post #184

LorenPechtel wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The tank that can hold enough nitrogen (or helium or argon--same volume means the same pressure which means effectively the same weight) to do the job reliably is heavy. By the time your health is such that you would choose that path you likely can't lift it. I have seen my wife struggle with lifting that weight when it's in a form meant to be lifted. I've seen her fail when it wasn't as cooperative.

Too bad, I guess that leaves out the "use disproportionately large amounts of the agent to hotbox the room" method. But that doesn't invalidate the point of the parent comment.

Which is completely missing the point. To hotbox a room you need a bunch of the big cylinders. Look at the tare weights on page 3:

https://www.airgas.com/medias/Airgas-Compressed-Gas-Cylinder...

The have a volume in cubic feet specified, multiply by the 165 bar that's what's typically used to see how much space it will fill. Looking around our house there's a very odd-shaped closet under the stairs that would be difficult to measure. Of the more typical places the smallest room in the house is a closet. 6' x 5' (minus a 1' x 1' chunk that I believe contains an air duct) x 8' = 232 cubic feet. Suppose you dump 232 cubic feet of material into it--you'll displace half the air which gives a time of useful consciousness of 20-30 minutes. Not good enough. Let's try doubling that, now we end up with a time of useful consciousness of 30-60 seconds. That's probably enough. That's 2 cylinders at 137 pounds each. Or if you use aluminum, 3 cylinders of 90 pounds each.

Re: It's getting harder to die

#205

Post by salzig » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 9:33 PM UTC

The author doesn’t believe his content is worth reading (full page „popup“). Good he included this feature so I can leave the page early.

Re: It's getting harder to die

#206

Post by LorenPechtel » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 9:35 PM UTC

Flumio wrote: post #200

_a_a_a_ wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also coming to the conclusion that inert gas hypoxia is going to be my way out. My end has to be, as far as I can make it, painless and polite, meaning a happy exit with minimal inconveniencing of as few as possible other people. Any suitable substance for this seems to be taken off the market, even basic stuff like metal nitrites (as used in curing meat. Try getting hold of a nontrivial amount of this in the UK)…

Any thoughts on how to inhale it without risking others finding you in a oxygen deprived setup? Like a warning sign or some fan kicking in later?

You don't set up such an environment in the first place. Tank to flow limiter to hose to bag.

Re: It's getting harder to die

#207

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 9:37 PM UTC

anonzzzies wrote: post #59

vundercind wrote: post #11

Recently watched someone close die over a couple days, after a long decline. The last 24 hours were monstrous to inflict on anyone. Torture. Evil. Hours and hours of faltering breathing, often restarting with what was plainly a panicked adrenaline-pumping response. It looked like they felt like they were about to drown every few minutes , hour, after hour, no relief. No IV fluids (terminal anyway, so no trying to kee…

Here they would ask you (unless dementia and not arranged, which is an ongoing issue) if you want more morphine and you can keep saying yes until you don’t wake up. Or click the button yourself; there is no limit (also; very hackable these limiting machines). Probably many people in a long decline would just hold the button until not waking up; that is the way it should be. Some people worry about the gov making us w…

Yes, this has been my experience with a family friend who died of a brain tumor. Basically, once you're in hospice (in this case it was home hospice) and it's clear you're going to die, they just hook you up to the morphine drip that you can press yourself.

Obviously for many people it's still very scary - it is death after all. But the self-administered morphine drip has been around for ages and is relatively uncontroversial.

Re: It's getting harder to die

#208

Post by tmjwid » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 9:47 PM UTC

camel_gopher wrote: post #39

vundercind wrote: post #11

Recently watched someone close die over a couple days, after a long decline. The last 24 hours were monstrous to inflict on anyone. Torture. Evil. Hours and hours of faltering breathing, often restarting with what was plainly a panicked adrenaline-pumping response. It looked like they felt like they were about to drown every few minutes , hour, after hour, no relief. No IV fluids (terminal anyway, so no trying to kee…

That breathing pattern is called the death rattle.

When my dad died last year from aggressive relapse of cancer, his death rattle was so intense my mum couldn't deal with it and had to leave the room when it was happening, it's a disturbing experience. She's still traumatised by it today.

Re: It's getting harder to die

#209

Post by amanaplanacanal » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 9:53 PM UTC

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #148

dralley wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some independence in daily activities "some" is doing a lot of work in this sentence. Recovering enough to have "at least some" independence after several months is not a great outcome. That very likely means lifelong daily care is required.

I know. That objection was brought up in the first article I read on this issue. Still, depending on the care required, it's pretty bad to imply that someone is better off dead. And 7% of the study subjects recovered completely.

The idea of living long term, near death, while medical expenses slowly eat away the savings I would prefer to leave to my loved ones makes me very unhappy.

Re: It's getting harder to die

#210

Post by Zenzero » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 9:58 PM UTC

LorenPechtel wrote: post #187

Zenzero wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctor here. This is overly simplistic. There is little to debate about your example of living at a 7/8 for 2 months. What is more realistic is some hypothetical situation where the average patient has an expected survival of 6 to 18 months, with the hope that the 7/8 pain can be reduced to a 4/5, and with acknowledgement that some days may be a score of 5, some days may be a score of 9. Then what? As a provider on t…

While I agree he's being too simplistic I think you're not getting it, either. You're making the standard error of the medical world of focusing too much on stuffing pigeons into pigeonholes because once you have found the supposedly correct (look at the patients who go to doctor after doctor after doctor until someone finally finds the rare issue that's the correct diagnosis--and realize that there are those who nev…

> You're making the standard error of the medical world of focusing too much on stuffing pigeons into pigeonholes because once you have found the supposedly correct (look at the patients who go to doctor after doctor after doctor until someone finally finds the rare issue that's the correct diagnosis--and realize that there are those who never get answers) pigeonhole you see the pigeonhole rather than the patien

This is another common misunderstanding of why people so commonly struggle to get a convincing diagnosis. The problem isn't a clueless doctor robotically listening for keywords. It's that the doctor has 10 minutes to dedicate to you and if it's not in the 80% of straightforward cases for them, the patient gets the bare minimum and then becomes someone else's problem. To solve that you need to fix provider shortages and (in the US) remove the corporate overlords constantly applying pressure on the little worker bees beneath them.

> out doesn't mean you can't look at the patients and see how things are turning out. And recognize that things are not static--your first patient doesn't exist. Things don't just sit there at three for three years and then kill you.

It's becoming clear to me you have a really odd sense of what doctors generally know and don't know. I don't really have an interest in exploring the left side of the Dunning kruger curve with respect to how medicine works.