Would you...or wouldnt you?

[Antoninus]

My history teacher raised a very interesting question today. He asked us something that I pray Ill never have to face.

If your child was injured in such a way that they became comatose, in a state where only life support systems would sustain life in your child. Assuming that there is no hope at all of recovery, would you ask for life support to be turned off.

The injuries have damaged the child's brain to a degree that no consious thought may pass through thier head. Only the most primitive areas of the brain can function.

Under these circumstances, knowing that there was no hope of recovery, would you ask for life support to be turned off, or leave life support in effect?

I pray that no one here has to face that situation, ever.

I personally....I couldnt do it, I just...I do not have it in me. I mean, I just...could not, do it. I cant explain why, I cant write it down. Its just...I could not bring myself to do it.

What about you? Please, do not feel obligated to reply to this thread, I realize this may be upsetting for someone to even CONSIDER.

[Threase]

It would be hard... but I would have my child taken off life support. To me, it would be obvious that my child was not meant to live the life given to him/her, and that they were meant for something different and most definitely better than a life as a veggie in a hospital... but that's just my opinion...

[misschief]

that's just...... icky. i don't know, and i'm not gonna speculate... i doubt it would help me get to sleep... lol.

[Tsuchimaru]

I would do it. That isn't living to me....

[halfwaynowhere]

I would have them taken off child support and donate their organs to children who do have a chance...

[Threase]

I would have them taken off child support and donate their organs to children who do have a chance...

I agree, that might be the reason for him/her being there... but there I go with the whole fate/destiny thing again...

[CaitrionaMorgaine]

I don't think I would truly know unless I were put in the situation--at least that's what my life's experience has taught me so far.

Avalon's Blessings, ~Rhiannon

[halfwaynowhere]

well, i have had this conversation with my mom already... if that happens to me, she will have me unplugged.

[*Rain*]

There was a case in the UK where someone woke up after nine years in a coma, which in some ways makes me think - where there's life there's hope. BUT - I personally would never want to put my family through that, in a way life stood still for that family, they were constantly at the hospital and it caused them a lot of heartache. It would be the hardest decision in the world but I think i'd have to say switch it off. Like halfwaynowhere said, offer the organs for donation, at least that way something good would come of it.

[Tullip Troll]

I would wait for a bit of time to pass...then yes I would disconnect...because really they are not alive and for me I would need to let them go.

I would be a wreck but at least we would be able to move on...when they are kept alive without any real hope no one can move on...not the child not the family.

MheraPai

[mucgwyrt]

There was a case in the UK where someone woke up after nine years in a coma, which in some ways makes me think - where there's life there's hope. BUT - I personally would never want to put my family through that, in a way life stood still for that family, they were constantly at the hospital and it caused them a lot of heartache. It would be the hardest decision in the world but I think i'd have to say switch it off. Like halfwaynowhere said, offer the organs for donation, at least that way something good would come of it.
Even if that did happen, it would be SO traumatic to lose 9 years of your life.

I would switch it off, and free my baby to live another life.

[Mouse]

Even if that did happen, it would be SO traumatic to lose 9 years of your life.

I would switch it off, and free my baby to live another life.

I'm in agreement here.. And i would hope if i were ever in that situation someone would unplug me too.

[dragonspirit 69]

This is a rather tough thing to think about but I think I would have teh oragns donated that are useable then take her off support.. I know I can say that now but until the situation actually happens I really don't know how I'd react.

[Rockprincess]

Even if that did happen, it would be SO traumatic to lose 9 years of your life.

I would switch it off, and free my baby to live another life.
:uhhuhuh:

Especially if, as you say, there was enough brain damage that no possibility of cognitive thought remained. That's going against nature, to keep someone's body alive when their soul is trying to leave.

[13thChylde]

It would definately be the most difficult thing to do one could imagine, but I would donate their organs and let my child go.

[Athena-Nadine]

I would wait for a bit of time to pass...then yes I would disconnect...because really they are not alive and for me I would need to let them go.

I would be a wreck but at least we would be able to move on...when they are kept alive without any real hope no one can move on...not the child not the family.

MheraPai
I agree.

But then, I've always been of the opinion that if you need life support to survive you're not supposed to be surviving. My living will stipulates that I am not to be put on life support at all.

[CalisticSunrise]

it would be hard, but i would have to have it turned off. it's not living if they can't function. plus this way it lets there soul move on and have a chance to live.... it would be so hard

[Tzhebee]

I'd pull the plug. If there was a 50/50 chance, I'd wait...but if it were slim to none, I'd pull the plug and donate all of thier organs/eyes/skin whatever was needed.

Me and my SO have talked about this actually. And we both agree that neither of us would want to live like that, so why would our children. And we are both big on organ donation.

[GaiaDea]

I would want to be turned off, and I have discussed this with my DD and DH as well. They also would want to be turned off, and all of us believe very firmly in organ donation, so that is what would be done. DD made this decision for herself at the age of four, after asking about something like it she saw on tv. It is never too early to discuss these things.

[soilsigh aingeal]

I would probably wait and pray and wait and pray some more and then it would have to be taken off at some point. I'm not sure how long I would wait, a week, two weeks, a month, who knows, I'm not there. But if I ever were there, eventually it would have to go off.

[WickedBttrfly]

If they're doomed to be a vegetable even if they do come out of the coma, I would pull the plug, donate their organs and hope to see them in another life. Cause that's not living, and I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

[StephanieAine]

I would *definitely* allow life support, and in fact would insist upon it.

Please take a moment to read *why* I say this.

Some have said "Life support? That's not living" - and I'll agree that it's a terrible thing to imagine, and not what we'd ideally want for a loved one to go through. However, *just because medical science says* that someone's condition is irreversible - it does not mean they're right.

In 1993, I was going through chemo and radiation when my cancer (a very aggressive, fast-growing cancer) returned. I had already been given surgeries and various courses of chemo and radiation, and when the cancer came back, it was laying flat against one of my organs. They had to insert radioactive rods to kill the tumor, but because it was flat against an organ, they couldn't do it without puncturing the organ, so there was "nothing they could do."

They called a meeting - and I found myself sitting in the Chapel of the cancer center with my mother, my grandfather (who had flown in from the East coast), two oncologists, my chemo nurse, a chaplain and a social worker. They were there to tell me that I had to "get my affairs in order" - which meant preparing to leave my daughter, who was then just a tiny thing. We were recently out of my terrible marriage and she was healing from abuse issues, and so of course - when I heard the "we're sorry" story, I was terrified. NO, I could not leave my child, I told them... I told them that if they couldn't do anything for me, and if they were prepared to just sit back and watch me die, they were in the wrong. They should use their "thinking caps" and try *something.*

The oncologist I saw most often was sitting there, and he said, "All we could do would be experiment on you, really, and you'd suffer. The issue here is 'quality of life.' It might work for a while, but the question is whether you'd really be living. And your cancer isn't responding to anything we've done, so why put you through that when you've been through all of this, and when the cancer grows back like this."

So I said, "You can't tell me what 'quality of life' is - but I can tell *you* that 'quality of life' means a chance to live - regardless of all of that - so that maybe I can see my daughter grow up, and so I can protect her from her dad. I don't care if you have to amputate my entire body; I don't care if I end up being basically just a head and neck attached to an oxygen tank, propped up in a wheelchair. As long as I'm *in this life* THAT is Quality of Life."

To my surprise, the look in his eyes changed. But his words didn't match. He said again that he had run out of tools... that "the first and second lines of defense" had all been tried, and all had failed. He didn't know what else to do.

So I thought about it for a minute, and I said, "Okay, then do this... you're a doctor, you're a researcher, so research is your 'thing' - just consider this a chance to be creative. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but I'm telling you it's okay for you to dream something up if you think it *might* work. You just do your doctor thing - and leave the rest of it up to me and God to work out."

He agreed, but when we left the chapel, everyone was strangely silent... and of course I knew it's because they were terrified because I was refusing to give up. (Around this time, I had several people tell me I was selfish to even TRY to stay alive because "everyone has a time to go, and maybe this is yours." Bullcrap. I was 27 years old! THAT was "my time"? Gimme a break. I felt it in my bones that this was bigger than I was, and for some reason, I was *meant* to fight. And no, I no longer speak to those people. They knew I needed to be around to protect my daughter, so I was surprised they argued with me.)

Well, a week or two later, my doctor appointment rolled around and when I went in, he said that he thought Taxol might work. However, what he DIDN'T tell me was that I was the first person with my type of cancer to ever be given Taxol... and nobody knew the long term effects (they still don't - and apparently, I'm the longest-living Taxol recipient, and my multiple health issues are basically a constant surprise to the doctors <g>.)

I told him to just not tell me anything scary about Taxol so I wouldn't freak out, LOL - I said "just do it" - so once I was given the basic info I needed to know, and nothing beyond that.... I was scheduled for my treatments. Meanwhile, I'm spending hours per day in prayer and having ongoing spiritual experiences (not the topic for the moment, though!).

He only scheduled me for about 6 months of treatment (maybe it was 5 months, I don't remember)... and honestly, he thought he was just pacifying me in my denial, I think. After that time period, he felt I was doing so well responding to the Taxol that he thought I should continue taking it for the rest of my life, just because he was assuming the Taxol was keeping me alive. I agreed.

Well, then I stopped breathing during a treatment. I turned out to be having a very serious reaction to the drug. He refused to give me more treatments, and I sat and sobbed. He said, "I'd rather see you leave in tears than see you leave in a pine box." That snapped me out of it... but again, I was told to get my affairs in order.

All my affairs were in order, but as I said, I was refusing to back down... and my prayer life was *intense.* In fact, it was a constant state of prayer, even when walking to and from the kitchen or riding in the car on the way to a doctor visit, or reading to my daughter. I was literally in God's presence and greatly relieved to realize that I was being heard... and I knew I was being answered.

The doctor thought I'd die, but every couple of weeks I'd be in his office again. Then he cut back to having visits every three months... and I kept returning. Then he said six months... and I still returned. Finally he said yearly. And now, he says to the new nurses that appear in his office periodically, and the resident medical students that occasionally train with him and have no history with me, "This is Stephanie - my miracle patient!"

He says he has no idea why I lived, and he used to worry about Quality of Life. I know why I lived. And yes, I've suffered tremendously... and today, I live with chronic pain and several health problems related to the massive doses of radiation and the chemo... but my Quality of Life is greater than it has EVER been. I would not trade this experience for the world. I am grateful that I realized that there was more to this whole thing than simply listening to a doctor's death sentence, and I'm grateful that I realized that sometimes miracles do happen.

So yes, I'd put my loved one on life support if life support was available to them, and I'd try everything else I could think of to help them in the meantime. I'd have prayer circles; I'd bring in aromatherapists and music therapists; I'd play books-on-tape and chat to them; I'd read medical books and think long and hard about potential avenues for healing. People HAVE woken up from even deep 'permenant' comas. People HAVE survived incurable cancer (moi <g>).

I'm a believer in things bigger and greater than earthly medicine...but I believe medicine is also a tool used by God. So I say use the available resources and don't give up.

[Tsuchimaru]

What if you're missing 3/4 of your brain? I highly doubt anyone can pray their way out of that. If I needed life support, I'd refuse it.

[Calen]

I would let some time pass, and pray for a miracle. But would I let life support go on indefinitely (or, even for more than a few months) to avoid dealing with my child's death? No. I feel certain that I would know when it was time to let go, and I pray that if that were ever to happen, I would have the strength to.
I agree that life is only truly lived when you can function at least minimally, and I would not want to hold my child back from all that they had waiting for them on the other end of the tunnel.
*shiver*

edited: yes, organ donation is a must. there is such a need!

[halfwaynowhere]

well, here's a little story...
three years ago my former english teacher (lets just call her melissa) met and befriended a 16 year old girl over the internet. They called each other every day, and they pretty much thought they were soul mates. Of course, Melissa was kinda wary about having that type of a friendship with a 16 year old, but i guess she thought it was fine since they weren't actually meeting in person. Anyways, one day, this girl is diagnosed with some form of cancer. She get reall sick and goes into a coma. The doctor called melissa and told her the girl had died. Shortly after that, he left town and was never to be heard from again. So my teacher goes through this massive grieving period, and then moves on. Well, last year, the girl came out of her coma, and the first person she thought of was melissa. She emailed her, and so all during class that day, instead of teaching the class, melissa was sitting on the floor behind her desk talking to her best friend on the phone after 3 years. I think last June the girl came out to california to finally meet Melissa for the first time.
see, what a sappy, but true, story.

of course, i still wouldn't want to rot for 3 years when i could be saving someone elses life.

[Valkie]

I would have them taken off child support and donate their organs to children who do have a chance...

ya, what she said.

[HorseCrow]

I would without a doubt have the life support turned off. The child would not "be", and the only function of keeping him/her alive would be to keep my grief going and prevent myself and everyone else from moving on. I would wish to let the child go and let everyone live their grief and get out on the other side.

[StephanieAine]

What if you're missing 3/4 of your brain? I highly doubt anyone can pray their way out of that. If I needed life support, I'd refuse it.

Interesting question!

My former mother-in-law was supposed to be a vegetable after having a large part of *her* brain removed (injury from either a biking or moped accident, I forget). That was probably 30 years ago, just guessing about that. She's no longer with us - and not due to the brain injury, but to cancer which she got many years later. And yes, she was perfectly able to live and function like anyone else without that portion of her brain. She told me that the doctors explained that apparently the rest of her brain somehow "took up the slack" and learned to do what the missing portion had done.

So there. <g>

[Tsuchimaru]

Interesting question!

My former mother-in-law was supposed to be a vegetable after having a large part of *her* brain removed (injury from either a biking or moped accident, I forget). That was probably 30 years ago, just guessing about that. She's no longer with us - and not due to the brain injury, but to cancer which she got many years later. And yes, she was perfectly able to live and function like anyone else without that portion of her brain. She told me that the doctors explained that apparently the rest of her brain somehow "took up the slack" and learned to do what the missing portion had done.

So there. <g>

That's good and all, but I said 3/4. That leaves a very small portion left to take over all the functions.

[Antoninus]

That's good and all, but I said 3/4. That leaves a very small portion left to take over all the functions.
Well...id say it was possible, we dont use something like 60% of our brains. That number is probably way off, but I know theres a certain percentage of our brains we dont use, so in the event of a removal of one part, Im sure the un-used areas could flare up and take the place of the part that was removed.

[Llewyth]

My SO had to decide wether or not to unplug his mother when he was fifteen. His father had already died a few years back, and no one else wanted to make the decision. So he decided to unplug her. But he sometimes still feels guilty about it. Her chances of getting out of it were quite slim he had been told. :(

[Holly Ariadna]

I'd never do it. There is always hope, and it's not up to me but up to God to take someone's life.

[Temair]

I see a difference between the cancer survival story and the question originally posed. All doctors that I know of agree that medicine does not cure a person's ills, it merely helps the body cure itself. That tells me there is a conscious thought, a will, that does the actual healing. With the cancer and the brain removal, the patient was still functioning and capable of exerting the will power to survive. If a patient is comatose, and brain function has completely shut down, then that tells me that the soul has already left the body, and machines are merely keeping the empty shell from completing its cycle. So if there is no brain activity at all, then I would definitely pull the plug. As much as I love my children and will fight to the death for them, there is no reason to deny closure for myself and everyone else who loves my child when she has already passed on. We have population issues today because we won't allow our elderly and terminally ill patients to have the peace of death. As a society we allow our fear of death to cause much more suffering for our loved ones. That is very selfish in my opinion. Yes, sometimes long-term coma patients wake up. Some people win millions of dollars in the lottery, too. Just because we have the gift of modern medicine doesn't mean that keeping someone alive for years is how it is supposed to be used. Just like anything else, life support can be abused. It is a refusal to listen to whatever deity we believe in when they say it's time.

So I would wait a month, maybe, then I would pull the plug and say goodbye to my baby.

[Athena-Nadine]

I'd never do it. There is always hope, and it's not up to me but up to God to take someone's life.
And it's not up to me but up to the gods to keep a person from death. It's not my place to say that someone should be artificially kept alive for an extended period of time when the gods have decided that it's time for that person to die. If it weren't, s/he wouldn't need life support.

My father was on a ventilator after his stroke for 8 months. And for what? After 8 months, he was finally able to breathe on his own, and lived in an agony of suffering for another year, being put back on that infernal machine over and over again. It would have been a kindness to let him go at the beginning. Instead, he was not allowed to die for 18 months. Why? Because we don't have a tenth of the compassion for a human that we do for a dog.

[StephanieAine]

If I had been feeling too ill to speak or something and everyone else had made the decision for me - assuming that they had already done all they could do - I would not be sitting here typing to you today. I deeply believe in miracles like what I was blessed with... and I do know people who *didn't* receive such healing, but I know that those people were grateful that they at least did everything they could possibly do.

I also know people who got cancer - forms which were easily treatable and with an excellent prognosis, requiring only brief treatment or surgery, and yet - for whatever reason - decided not to do anything at all. They basically just died - without any attempt to fight.

I also know some people who have said that they won't even allow mouth-to-mouth if they stop breathing for some reason - because they consider that to be "artificial" and "overly heroic means" to "keep them alive" - and it just baffles me.

I don't know. Maybe I just have a huge amount of fighter instinct or something.

[StephanieAine]

Oh, and another tidbit.

My own mother told me that if she ever gets cancer, she will refuse treatment... because of how much she saw me go through. When she said that, I wanted to smack her. I thought that if one good thing could come out of my story, it would be that life is worth the fight.

Let me tell you about suffering. Yes, I suffered. But the greatest suffering would have been the last day of my life, thinking that I was leaving my little girl and I'd never see the clouds or the grass or the trees again. Do you have any idea how many times I'd look out the windows on Chemo Day, while riding in the car to the hospital, thinking, "Please God, don't let that be the last cloud"? Do you have any idea about how I tried to memorize what rain feels like when it hits bare arms?

It was horrible to feel that, to feel myself slipping out of the world. I could feel it happening. I remember one particular day standing in the parking lot getting ready to get in the car (I was always in cars or in hospitals back then, it seems) and I was watching people walk into a store across the street. Suddenly I realized I felt different and I didn't know why... but then it hit me: they're in the world and I'm not. I'm half in the world. It's hard to explain, but in that moment, I'm assuming I was nearing the end - and I could actually feel my consciousness being part here, part there. I know this doesn't make a bit of sense to people unless they've been through it, but it was tremendously scary... not because the feeling itself was scary, or because cancer was scary... no, those things are definitely *handleable.* What's *not* easy to handle is trying to grab on to life and stay in it. ***I did not want to go.***

I really hate this thread. I know everyone's just hypothesizing and trying to be real, trying to be reasonable, trying to think of what's right and moral, what's best, all of that... and dear God, I certainly hate the thought of putting someone I love through unnecessary medical crap that would make them suffer. But the problem is that sometimes people who are healthy assume that they understand what "unnecessary suffering" is. I hate to say this, but you really don't understand it unless you're in it, and I mean being the person who is actually personally facing it. If someone can't talk because they're unable, and if others are making choices for them, all I can say is that you really need to think about how much that person wants to live and wants to try - even wants to try the seemingly impossible. Because in that, you may find the real truth about how to help that loved one. What scares me is the idea of giving up on a person who just may have a lot of fighter instinct, but who needs others to help them do the fighting.

Just food for thought....

[Tsuchimaru]

I'm pretty sure that if in a coma, I won't have any "fighting spirit". I guess the question is, "Are you selfish enough to keep someone alive, even if that person -isn't- that person anymore?"

[StephanieAine]

Hi Tsuchi <hug>...

You wrote, "I'm pretty sure that if in a coma, I won't have any 'fighting spirit'. I guess the question is, 'Are you selfish enough to keep someone alive, even if that person -isn't- that person anymore?' "

Okay, a couple of things:

First, people are very different.

Some people know right away that they'd want to fight their hardest as long as they were conscious... and that if they became unconscious, they'd hope their loved ones would realize to help them fight.

Other people don't know what they'd do until they were faced with the situation. Personally, prior to my illness, I never ever dreamed that I *did* have a "fighter instinct" - in fact, I thought of myself as a big whiner who couldn't even handle having their blood taken <g>.

When I think that, perhaps, I *could* have had a situation where I wasn't able to decide verbally what to do - meaning if my cancer had been diagnosed any later than it was (and mine was already at stage 4 when I was diagnosed, so it's not inconceivable that I may very well have collapsed or something if any more time had passed).

If that had happened, considering that I had never really thought very much about such a situation, I really truly wonder if my mother and other relatives *would* have realized that I would want to fight like crazy... or if they would have grabbed a box of Kleenex and said, "Well... she was young, but she lived a good life... go ahead, doc, let her go." Considering their remarks in recent years, I have a feeling they would have given up on me. Thankfully, my daughter - who is now legally an adult - would never give up, so I don't have to worry about such a thing anymore. If I ever - God forbid - have a recurrence of the disease, I can trust that my daughter will partner with me in fighting it once again, and if I needed life support, she'd insist upon it.

As I said, people are different. Let's consider - just for the sake of example - a person suffering from depression or something. That person may go around feeling very much like life is something to be endured, and maybe they can't imagine wanting to fight for it very hard at all. So, if they're considering these sorts of hypothetical questions while going through depression - whether mild or severe - they may assume that they'd not want to fight; they may think life support would be a waste, and something pointless to suffer through if there's no guarantee of survival and eventual healing.

But - funny thing - sometimes people with depression, even people who have been suicidal, find themselves faced with life-threatening illness or injury, and when the doctors say "there is only a (small percentage) of survival, and the statistics are a concern" - well, that previously depressed person may find themselves thinking, "Why did I want to die before, when I was healthy - and why is it that now that I'm faced with that very possibility, suddenly I realize that in fact I **do** want to live?!"

I wasn't clinically depressed prior to my cancer, but I WAS depressed, and I did feel like I was going through the motions. I was only a year out of an abusive marriage, and IrishDancer was just a tiny little girl (herself suffering from actual clinical depression due to recovery from sexual abuse by a man in the family). We were terribly poor because of that divorce, and often for meals, I'd give IrishDancer the only plate of food... then if she left a bite or two on her plate, I'd hide around the corner in the kitchen where she couldn't see me, and I'd eat that last bite or two of food. (I learned a few years ago that she eventually caught me doing it, although I never realized it... and I suspect that's why there always seemed to be an extra bite of food on her plate, even when I knew she had been hungry before dinner.)

I had been very sick for a long time without any diagnosis. I was bleeding daily, and the doctor kept saying I just had hormonal problems. I was exhausted. I was constantly in court trying to protect my daughter. My ex-husband was calling on the phone and harrassing me; I was afraid to walk to the mailbox for fear that he'd show up, since he spent a large amount of time circling the neighborhood in his car.

I definitely was depressed - and I didn't see much point to my life other than being a Mama, which fortunately gave me great joy... so I would have never harmed myself. But I guess you could say that I didn't have a *zest* for life, and I wasn't *in touch* with life in any way... it's hard to explain.

The cancer knocked me for a loop because when they told me I had only a couple of months to live, I suddenly realized, Hey, wait a minute, I **am** glad to be alive, and I *like* being alive... **plus** my daughter needs me! I *do* matter, and **my life** matters. I'm part of this life for a reason, and I don't want to leave!

That was not at all what I imagined I'd ever feel.

Even more surprising was the fact that I realized that I was actually woven into the fabric of life in such a way that if I left, the pattern would be changed. I'm not saying some grandiose thing or claiming I'm the center of the universe or anything (although I am the queen of the universe, ROFL, just kidding!). I realized that God had a plan for me specifically, and that for some reason, the cancer was part of that plan. Every cell in my body, every beat of my heart, was screaming "Grab life and hold on!" That's really something, coming from a woman who once wondered if life was punishing her or something.

You said "I'm pretty sure that if in a coma, I won't have any 'fighting spirit'." If you're in a coma and you are completely unaware and not thinking (which can't always be proven, so many times when people are in comatose states, they DO hear and think - which they tell people about later after they've 'come back' - so it's iffy to say that people in comas 'aren't there')... well, if you truly weren't thinking/aware, then of course, you wouldn't be consciously fighting or not fighting, you'd just be 'there.'

But that's not to say that you'd have a lack of fighting spirit.

You may very well have the will to live, the will to fight, the will to do whatever it takes to hold on to that teeny, tiny fraction of a chance that you might be a Miracle after all... but maybe you'd just need someone to help you do that. The way to help you might be to say, 'yes, let's do life support... and let's put on our thinking caps and contact various researchers about how we can best help him so that maybe he *can* recover.'

You also said, I guess the question is, 'Are you selfish enough to keep someone alive, even if that person -isn't- that person anymore?' "

I don't think it's fair to say that a person would be 'selfish enough to keep someone alive.' The point here is that the people making those emergency decisions about life support (when the patient is unable to say) ***are not the point.***

It's **the patient** who is the point.

How exactly is it that, for example, Joe Blow is in a coma and requires life support to stay alive, and Jake Blow, Joe's brother, makes the decision to put Joe on life support... how does that make Jake selfish... is it because you're assuming Jake benefits from Joe having life support, because then Jake doesn't have to see Joe's life end?

That may be true... but couldn't it also be said that if Jake chose *not* to allow life support for Joe, that he could be called selfish for not wanting to see Joe attached to machines?
See, the 'selfish' thing doesn't work here - because the issue is our imaginary friend *Joe* here.

Maybe Jake hates the idea of machines and tubes, and even hates hospitals. Maybe he thinks it would be nice to take Hypothetical Joe, attach him to a hot air balloon, and let him sail across the ocean or something. Well, maybe Hypothetical Joe would like it if people checked the latest research studies and investigated what new surgical procedures/medications/whatever were being currently developed... and maybe Joe would think that life support could allow him to remain alive so that he could be part of a new study, for example.

Now, if Joe would like to "try everything" (but he can't talk, so Jake is having to tell the doctors what he thinks should be done) - and if Jake is against life support for whatever reason - whose viewpoint should matter here? Definitely Joe's viewpoint. He's the patient. Now, in this example, 'Joe' has never told anyone what he wants. Does this mean that Jake should just follow his own 'no life support' beliefs and give up on Joe based on that? I don't think so. I think that the important thing in a case like that is to really consider the deepest part of who that patient is, and really think about what they'd want. And if they think the answer would be to 'pull the plug' - I'd certainly hope that they'd really think long and hard about that, since it's such a serious thing to do. And I'm sure that most people in that upsetting situation do think long and hard about it, and it's probably a terribly upsetting situation to have to make that kind of a decision.

I'm just saying that I think that sometimes people in general speak about life support negatively, sort of from an automatic reaction, without really thinking about the hope and the possibilities available that might make life support *worth* having. Maybe there are cases when that's not the case, but I think it's probably better to err on the side of caution, and try to look for reasons for aggressive/creative/newly developing treatment mixed with life support - rather than automatically rejecting life support as an option.

Then there was the second part of your question: "'Are you selfish enough to keep someone alive, even if that person -isn't- that person anymore?'

I know what you're meaning there, and I know that illness and injury tremendously changes people many times... and that it can be really devastating when an active, vital, joyous person suddenly becomes incapacitated and loses the ability to do things. And I know that if an active, previously healthy person suddenly ends up in a deep coma and they seem to not be themselves anymore, the thing is, they *are* themselves, deep down. Even if they can't talk, even if they can't think, etc... the heart and soul of that person is *them* and the state of their body has nothing to do with anything. That's why it's so important to really remember the heart and soul of the person in these kinds of situations... because maybe rather than dying, they'd want to "get back to being themselves" by fighting for survival, or at least have the possible opportunity to fight for it. Then again, maybe the person wouldn't want to try. I think that's when it becomes especially important to understand the inner person, without being distracted by their physical situation, when considering such monumental decisions.

[Athena-Nadine]

Oh, and another tidbit.

My own mother told me that if she ever gets cancer, she will refuse treatment... because of how much she saw me go through. When she said that, I wanted to smack her. I thought that if one good thing could come out of my story, it would be that life is worth the fight.
Smack her for what? Your mother has every right to make her own decisions about her own life and death, no matter how you feel about it. The greatest gift of love anyone can give someone else is to let him/her choose to live or die as s/he sees fit. To do otherwise is nothing but catering to our own selfish desires.

Let me tell you about suffering. Yes, I suffered. But the greatest suffering would have been the last day of my life, thinking that I was leaving my little girl and I'd never see the clouds or the grass or the trees again. Do you have any idea how many times I'd look out the windows on Chemo Day, while riding in the car to the hospital, thinking, "Please God, don't let that be the last cloud"? Do you have any idea about how I tried to memorize what rain feels like when it hits bare arms?

It was horrible to feel that, to feel myself slipping out of the world. I could feel it happening. I remember one particular day standing in the parking lot getting ready to get in the car (I was always in cars or in hospitals back then, it seems) and I was watching people walk into a store across the street. Suddenly I realized I felt different and I didn't know why... but then it hit me: they're in the world and I'm not. I'm half in the world. It's hard to explain, but in that moment, I'm assuming I was nearing the end - and I could actually feel my consciousness being part here, part there. I know this doesn't make a bit of sense to people unless they've been through it, but it was tremendously scary... not because the feeling itself was scary, or because cancer was scary... no, those things are definitely *handleable.*
Yet not everyone sees these things as you do and that is their right.

What's *not* easy to handle is trying to grab on to life and stay in it. ***I did not want to go.***
Neither is it easy to let go of the life you want to leave when other people are forcing you to stay. My father did not want to stay. He wanted to be able to go in peace, with dignity. Instead, because other people were selfish, he was forced to live his last 18 months completely aware of the horror that his life became, but being able to do nothing but blink. All he could do was scream in his head and beg for death. And he did. At least 4 or 5 times a day, using his letter board, he begged everyone to let him die. No one listened. *...shakes head...* I begged everyone to accede to his wishes. I was ridiculed and ignored for it.

I really hate this thread. I know everyone's just hypothesizing and trying to be real, trying to be reasonable, trying to think of what's right and moral, what's best, all of that... and dear God, I certainly hate the thought of putting someone I love through unnecessary medical crap that would make them suffer. But the problem is that sometimes people who are healthy assume that they understand what "unnecessary suffering" is. I hate to say this, but you really don't understand it unless you're in it, and I mean being the person who is actually personally facing it. If someone can't talk because they're unable, and if others are making choices for them, all I can say is that you really need to think about how much that person wants to live and wants to try - even wants to try the seemingly impossible. Because in that, you may find the real truth about how to help that loved one. What scares me is the idea of giving up on a person who just may have a lot of fighter instinct, but who needs others to help them do the fighting.

Just food for thought....
And if someone can't talk because they're unable, and if others are making their choices for them, you really need to think about how much that person wants to be allowed to die. Because in that, you may find the real truth about how to help that loved one.

Yes, life is worth the fight. But sometimes, death is a kindness and a blessing. It was your choice to fight. You did so for your own reasons. Others choose not to for their own reasons. That doesn't make them any weaker or less right than you. To determine someone else's choice must be life because you chose it is wrong.

Thankfully, I will now never have to make that choice for anyone in my family, and no one will ever have to make it for me. We all have living wills, and all of them will stand up in court, if necessary. Every single one of us will be unplugged if we are brain dead or if there is less than a 50% chance of recovery, or if we have been on life support for more than 3 months. In some instances, we will not allow anyone to place us on life support or recuscitate us at all. We love each other too much to put them through that torment. Does that mean you love your family less? Of course not. It just means we choose different ways of expressing it.