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Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

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Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#91

Post by PyroLagus »

scotty79 wrote: post #47
gekkeboom wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that life in and of itself is valuable even under terrible conditions. Especially if there is no positive outlook, that things will be better, no reason to hang on. I think only one thing really matters: QUALITY of life. Life is not intrinsically sacred. QUALITY of life is to me.

My belief is that since there's nothing except for life, life of any quality is infinitely better than no life. However this belief of mine is currentlly being viscerally challenged.

I imagine a year in solitary confinement (how is solitary even legal still?) would likely change your mind. I'd say no life is better than a life of torture, and taking "life of any quality is infinitely better than no life" to the extreme, would mean that hell with eternal constant torture would be better than not existing, which I can't agree with nor understand. I'm glad that you have such a positive outlook on life, but I doubt that you could maintain it in the face of a long torturous experience, few can.

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#92

Post by falsedan »

jdietrich wrote: post #78
falsedan wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 exp…

yes, if you quote the next part of my post:

> medical science isn’t so good at explaining why the drugs have these actions

you can see I'm in full agreement

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#93

Post by pavel_lishin »

chillfox wrote: post #19
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard for me to imagine wanting this life. Imprisoned in a state worse than solitary confinement for more than a decade. Life is very good, most of the time, but there are states where less is more.

That really depends upon how bright you think the future is. If you think the future will bring amazing medical breakthroughs and immortality, then tubes is only temporary and all you gotta do is hang on long enough.

Regardless of what can be done to cure our brain, can you mind adapt after twenty years of solitary confinement?

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#94

Post by scotty79 »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #54
scotty79 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My belief is that since there's nothing except for life, life of any quality is infinitely better than no life. However this belief of mine is currentlly being viscerally challenged.

Is there a living will? What is their wishes, either written or verbally spoken? In cases where we have to make hard decisions like this, I find some solace that they have made their decisions ahead of time so that we only complete their requests. I don't envy you at all in this. The same thing happened to my dad, except the life-saving measures failed, and the doctors said there was nothing else they could do. They…

No will, no specific wishes, except for 'be healthy' and 'if not possible, die on the operating table'. No way to obtain them now. Even so they'd make no difference. Ending life is prohibited by both law and religion of the land. Any attempt to do less than possible to keep her alive would be illegal and religiously immoral. We just have to wait till life-saving measures will fail.

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#95

Post by [deleted] »

roywiggins wrote: post #81
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

We anesthetize infants fairly often now[1]. It's still a bit risky, but it's fairly common. It's gotten less risky because we do it a lot and have gotten quite good at it. If we'd never revised the science on infant pain, we never would have even bothered to try. Turns out, it's possible to do it fairly safely. It's one thing to say, we're not going to use anesthesia because it's too much risk, it's another to say th…

[deleted]

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#96

Post by scotty79 »

lifesahack wrote: post #61
gekkeboom wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that life in and of itself is valuable even under terrible conditions. Especially if there is no positive outlook, that things will be better, no reason to hang on. I think only one thing really matters: QUALITY of life. Life is not intrinsically sacred. QUALITY of life is to me.

Depression gives you a negative outlook, regardless of how good your quality of life is. An irrational thought loop that whispers to you (or screams at you) that things will not get better. It's easy to conflate negative thoughts into reality. If you do find a way out, the idea that life itself is sacred (regardless of quality of life) can help keep things in perspective for next time.

I deeply believe that depression is just physical brain damage and dark thoughts are just the symptom making harder for you to get treatment just like a pain in the knee might make it harder for you exercise it a bit or get to the doctor to get treatment. I don't think that dark thoughts by themselves cause depression or even directly contribute to it. Same way the feeling of pain doesn't make your knee worse.

I think it might be helpful to have distance to your feelings. To understand that unlike your thoughts, your feelings have direct purely biological source. You might find it easier to suffer through them, like you can suffer through limping.

I hope I'll never get depressed so I won't have to find out whether that makes any difference.

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#97

Post by scotty79 »

inflatableDodo wrote: post #75
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.

I think at this state she doesn't have enough focus to follow a movie. She was temporarily in a bad shape after previous surgeries (though not that bad as she is now) and she didn't want to watch movies then.

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#98

Post by inflatableDodo »

scotty79 wrote: post #97
inflatableDodo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think at this state she doesn't have enough focus to follow a movie. She was temporarily in a bad shape after previous surgeries (though not that bad as she is now) and she didn't want to watch movies then.

I'm very sorry to hear that, I hope I wasn't sticking my nose in too much by making the suggestion.

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#99

Post by scotty79 »

PyroLagus wrote: post #91
scotty79 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My belief is that since there's nothing except for life, life of any quality is infinitely better than no life. However this belief of mine is currentlly being viscerally challenged.

I imagine a year in solitary confinement (how is solitary even legal still?) would likely change your mind. I'd say no life is better than a life of torture, and taking "life of any quality is infinitely better than no life" to the extreme, would mean that hell with eternal constant torture would be better than not existing, which I can't agree with nor understand. I'm glad that you have such a positive outlook on li…

People spend whole lives in prison and they still don't want to die. Very small number of people with healthy brains (undamaged by depression for example) kill themselves intentionally even though it's not that hard. Life is very fragile. Somehow even in this world filled with suffering practical calculation lands for almost all people on the side of "let's not end this just yet".

You can ponder eternal torture and not existing but I'm talking about more down to earth thing. Your single life. You will never have anything besides it. It's not eternal torture, it's not even all torture. It is everything you own and the only thing you own. How could you give up any future piece of it that you didn't have to?

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#100

Post by scotty79 »

inflatableDodo wrote: post #98
scotty79 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think at this state she doesn't have enough focus to follow a movie. She was temporarily in a bad shape after previous surgeries (though not that bad as she is now) and she didn't want to watch movies then.

I'm very sorry to hear that, I hope I wasn't sticking my nose in too much by making the suggestion.

Of course not. Thank you. All insightful comments are welcomed. Even if they won't help us they might be read by someone else and help them.
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