Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

It's getting harder to die

plough.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 255 posts

Re: It's getting harder to die

#91

Post by cjk2 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #79
cjk2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey you're me 15 years ago. I stopped the sports and switched to sustained low damage exercise like cycling, hiking, swimming etc. While you can't undo the damage done if you have a very high level of fitness, you can reduce the effects of the further progression of time. Better be as fit as a 50 year old with some damage when you're 70 than as fit as a 70 year old with some damage. End game is not pretty. My ex wife…

Part of me really wants to pick up hockey - just for fun, recreationally - but at 40, I'm worried that I'll get injured to the point where I won't be able to do other things I enjoy, like cycling. Hell, I fell off my bike from a stop a few weeks ago, and landed on my knee, and it took a week and a half before I felt like I could trust my leg to hold weight.

Don't do it. My sister took up hockey when she was 16 and lost 4 front teeth within 3 months. She's 45 now and just had the second set of replacements...

Re: It's getting harder to die

#92

Post by ozim »

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…

You know that government doesn’t care about you.

They care about your relatives who are burdened not “accidentally” holding that button for you when somehow you would still like to live.

Re: It's getting harder to die

#93

Post by erie »

It means also that "Do not go gentle into that good night" is not realistic most of the time. We have a saying in Arabic that I only understood after my father died, it to the effect that something is so difficult that:'' it is harder than the spirit leaving the body'. I think it is time that hospice care evolve to make it easier.

Re: It's getting harder to die

#94

Post by bigstrat2003 »

qgin wrote: post #72
spondylosaurus wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamentalist stance on Schiavo's case (to continue care at all costs) was always interesting/puzzling to me. On some level I would assume that people with a strong belief in the afterlife would be more open to letting people pass from this mortal earth than those of us who don't have strong beliefs about an afterlife... but clearly that wasn't the case :P

Growing up in the church, it eventually became pretty clear that nobody actually believed in heaven. Almost nobody’s actions were congruent with what you would do if you actually believed in heaven. The stances on death, the reactions when people died… it all matched what you’d do if you believed death was the end and none of it matched what you’d do if you believed people went on to eternal paradise.

These are easily explained, and not evidence of your claim that Christians don't actually believe in heaven.

I assume that by "stances on death" you mean that Christians generally believe that it is immoral to allow people to die. That is because we believe that the life of humans has a fundamental moral worth, such that it is wrong to kill them no matter the circumstances. Many Christians would agree that the patient of some terminal illness would be better off dead, but that doesn't give us the right to do the deed. We aren't consequentialists, we are deontologists. If something (i.e. killing people) is wrong, then it is wrong no matter if it leads to a better outcome.

As far as "reactions when people died", it should be obvious but it sucks to lose your loved ones no matter what. Even if you felt completely certain that someone's soul was in heaven (and few would claim to be that certain, more on that in a bit), it's still very painful to have to be separated from them. It's comforting to believe that someone is (or will be) in heaven, but that comfort does not just erase the pain that you have to endure in the here and now. People aren't Vulcans, who can shrug things off through logical reasoning. They have feelings that are sometimes irrational but no less real because of it.

Furthermore, nobody can have complete certainty of the future. If I were to lose my job, I would be upset and worried because of how that might impact my family. By your logic, this would mean that I don't actually believe that I'll be able to find a new job. But no, it just means that I know that the future isn't certain. I believe I could find a new job if I lost my current job today. But I'm not certain, and that means I would be upset if I did lose my job. In a similar way, Christians believe in heaven but we can't be certain, so we still fear death sometimes. I mean, Jesus himself was afraid of his impending torture and death at the hands of the Romans! It's just part of being human.

Re: It's getting harder to die

#95

Post by julianeon »

I think sometimes these articles don't pose the question all that well. The way I would ask it is:

Imagine a pain scale of 1-10; pretend 10 is so high that you die from the pain.

Is it worth living at a 7-8 at every moment continuously, to extend your life for 2 months? How about living at a 9 for just 2 more weeks?

If you say "no" that just means you're not hooked up to a machine where that's your living experience (not like someone is actively killing you).

I think, when you put it that way, it becomes easier to set some rules around it. Btw I'm pretty close to someone who would always choose to live longer, but even I would say no to, for example, living at a 10 of pain for just 1 more week of life.

Re: It's getting harder to die

#96

Post by martinpw »

> Spend your remaining days at home if possible.

This sounds appealing in the abstract but one thing to consider is the impact on other family members. My parents had a neighbor who chose to remain at home. However that meant his wife also had to stay at home to look after him (yes there were nurses who came in a couple of times a day, but a lot of the burden was still on the wife.) This meant her own life basically shut down. She never went out, and spent at least a year fully housebound for his care.

Once he died, she was able to go out, reconnect with friends, kickstart her life again. Couldn't help feeling the husband's choice here was a selfish one.

Re: It's getting harder to die

#97

Post by WhitneyLand »

Perenti wrote: post #54

It's worse than the article says, because it's from a doctor's perspective. I have CRPS, one of the contenders for worst chronic pain you can have. It's a "suicide disease", because if it advances to stage 3/4, there's a suicide rate of about 70%. It sucks a lot. I've had well over 200 spinal procedures over the last 30 years to try to mitigate the pain, with dozens of other surgical procedures in less tricky spots.…

May I ask if you’ve considered taking measures to end your own life?

I think I’ve had an unusual number of people close to me choose that option, including my father recently so I guess I’m still trying to reconcile it all. Their pain vs mine, what could have played out differently, etc.

I sincerely wish the best outcome for you and yours.

Re: It's getting harder to die

#98

Post by Der_Einzige »

briffle wrote: post #22
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…

> and unable to drink, so certainly terribly thirsty the whole time. I know people that work in hospice, and they say this is a big misconception (the article hints at it too). they patients don't die from lack of water, they don't want water because they are dying, and their body can't process it. In fact, as you kind of touched on at the start, giving them IV fluids can cause them to drown since their body can't pr…

Oregon pioneered death with dignity so this is a huge surprise.

Re: It's getting harder to die

#99

Post by lotsofpulp »

ozim wrote: post #92
anonzzzies wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You know that government doesn’t care about you. They care about your relatives who are burdened not “accidentally” holding that button for you when somehow you would still like to live.

In the US, the big reason is religious groups that want to force their religion onto others.

Re: It's getting harder to die

#100

Post by Der_Einzige »

jezzamon wrote: post #83
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…

How do you reconcile that with many people that attempted suicide due to some illness like depression, and then later very much we're glad they didn't die. "Only of sound mind" sounds difficult to measure. Related: Majority of gun deaths in the USA are suicides. In the gun control debate you might want to exclude those, right? But actually having ready access to a way to die increases the total number of suicides - i…

A permanent solution to a temporary problem still leaves the problem solved.
Post reply on HN