Comment

Palin: Senior Citizens Will Be Pressured to Die

629
kansas8/13/2009 12:55:01 pm PDT

re: #595 chotii

My grandfather is 96 years old. He is in an Alzheimer Care facility in Washington State.

Half a year ago, he fell and shattered his hip. He was in absolute agony – bad enough under any circumstances, but worse in his case because he could not comprehend it, and could not be gotten to lie still, rather thrashing against his pain. Drugging him insensible would not have even really been palliative, as his bones would have healed slowly if at all. To keep him from being in pain, he would have had to be bed-bound 24/7 and drugged unconscious, placing him at risk for skin breakdown and every sort of infection. His doctor advised a hip replacement. Our whole family said “You’re kidding, right? He’s 96 years old.” But…he was right.

My grandfather had the hip replacement, using (by the way) his own private insurance. He came through extremely well, healed amazingly well, and while he can no longer walk, he is in no pain and does not require full-time sedation – or any sedation at all. He enjoys life as much as someone in his situation can do. Sometimes the man we knew surfaces from under the muddled confusion; the sense of humor, the sweet kindness. We haven’t lost him entirely, yet.

There were only three other options any of us could see:

1. Drug him to keep him out of pain, necessarily depriving him of any ability to interact with the world, until some iatrogenic illness or secondary infection carried him off
2. ‘Accidentally’ overdose him while sedating him, so that he died, and call it ‘mercy’.
3. Deliberately overdose him and kill him. This is currently illegal under Washington law, though we do have a ‘voluntary physician-assisted death’ law. He could not have qualified, being mentally incompetent, and others are not permitted to act on behalf of the individual.

I still believe the doctor made the right decision.

Absolutely made the right decision. Can’t find that case in the government what to do manual. That’s part of the art of medicine about which, among other things, Obama has nary a clue.