POLL: Have you ever had to stop life support on a family member?

[Chicago Democrat]

I wonder what percentage of us have had to agree to withhold life support to a terminally ill family member?

[Chicago Democrat]

1. I'm not suprised the percentage is high on "yes"...

MAKES THIS SHIAVO THING ALL THE MORE OUTRAGIOUS!

[MuseRider]

2. For my mother

and my younger brother. I have also been on the end of the health care provider as an ICU nurse and have helped with these decisions. It is never easy, ever.

[Chicago Democrat]

4. I was upset for years about it and mad that I wasn't asked when

mom turned dad's machines off. But now I'm older and understand and feel bad i was upset at the time.

[MuseRider]

12. My mother

would not let us see my dad the last few days of his life. I was 19 and she felt the need to protect me. Mothers do dumb things sometimes because it makes it easier for them or because they do not know what to do. It may not be right but it happens. I am glad you were able to get over it, it does suck.

[tubbacheez]

3. Voted no, but have a friend who is a hospice doctor.

We've had discussions on the ethics of life support, etc. for many years now. Not an easy issue any way you look at it.

[WilliamPitt]

5. Twice

[Wat_Tyler]

6. Yes. My grandad.

[EFerrari]

7. Grandmother

My mother and I cared for her for many years. And sometimes, in exhaustion, we talked about the options. In the end, we didn't make the decision.

[greenbriar]

8. we had

to encourage my dad to sign a living will when he was dying from leukemia


man it was hard listening to his heart monitor bleep when it hit 0 pressure/pulse

[Poiuyt]

9. My father

Not a lot of fun. We asked the doctor to tell us when (in his opinion) he would not get better.

[PleadTheFirst]

10. Yes, for my father. n/t

[Greybnk48]

11. Both parents for me...in the end

to avert suffering. At the time of my mother's death she had a tube down her throat (ng tube) so that shit did not back up into her mouth. It was horrific. She died peacefully. We were there.

My father was brain dead or close to it following a stroke (his 5th). He pulled out his ventilator and we refused to allow them to put it back in. He died the next day peacefully. We were there.

Sorry if this is harsh or crude, but this is what happens in the real world, not Shiavo fantasyland. Most people in dire condition--and hers is the worst, do not recover. Thankfully, due to her neurological condition, she cannot suffer.

[Selteri]

13. Once

And two who have requested that I hold that power if something happens.

It's hard.

[Jeanette in FL]

14. My Dad last year

He had a brain anyuerism. After the Doctors did all their examinations and tests, they told me that he was basically brain dead. That the bleed was massive and all he had left was his brain stem. He would never recover. It is a gut wrenching decision to have to make but it was made easier because we did have conversations about how he would not want to live like that. Plus he did have a living will, though I was never asked to produce it. Waiting for his body to pass after they removed the breathing tube was the most unbelievable experience I have ever gone through. His body was in great shape so it took about 10 hours.

[HawkerHurricane]

15. Does this count?

My wife's elderly aunt was living with us, and she requested 'no massive life support'... when she had her final collapse (no other word for it), we refused to put her on life support.

She died in her own room, with her sister (my wife's mother) sitting next to her, in her sleep.

[Chicago Democrat]

16. yes that counts

[HawkerHurricane]

21. I don't feel like I made the decision...

so much as supported my wife and mother in law as they made the decision to follow my aunt's wishes...
Or...
My aunt made the decision. My wife and mother in law followed that decision. I merely provided moral support (hugs, dinner, hand holding, etc.).

[Chicago Democrat]

25. Hugs are like helping make the decision and I'm sorry you had to

go through that.

[artemisia1]

44. no merely about it...

and you did help make the decision by not contradicting their wishes as "fundies" would.

It sucks, but I have a friend in a similiar position with a small child. It sucks. They have all my support but none of my "opinion".

[meow2u3]

17. My mom explicitly told me not to have her hooked up to anything

She actually told me and my family to leave it up to God.

when she did collapse, I did have a neighbor call an ambulance to have her looked at, but within hours, she was pronounced dead. In fact, she faded away fast and looked peaceful--to the point where she looked 20 years younger--when she went.

She said she had suffered enough when she was alive. She just wanted to go to God. It would have been very selfish of me to keep her alive just to be able to collect more of her money.

[guinivere]

18. Yes, my dad nt

[LeahD]

19. No, but..........

when my dad was terminal, we signed a DNR (do not resuscitate).

[Az]

20. Not yet

But both my parents have a living will designating me as having final say in this matter. They gave financial oversite to my brother and life and death to me. Not an easy descision to make.

[jeanarrett]

22. Yes. . . my brother. . .

34 years old with a very young family, and I believed it was too soon (less than 24 hours between onset of symptoms and plug pulling) and I believed he was still "viable" - but my big mouth, new age, critical-care nurse know-it-all cousin convinced everyone else that he was not and it was the right thing to do. I still regret not giving him a few more days. . .and fighting for it. . .especially when I personally knew someone who went through the same thing he did and was comatose for three months who came out of it and lived 10 more years.

[Bunny]

23. My Dad, two years ago.

He was in the hospital for two months with a lung infection. One night, he died. A nurse happened to enter the room soon afterward and began resuscitation. (We didn't have a DNR because we were cautiously optimistic that he would recover.) Anyway, they did resuscitate him, but by that time he had been without oxygen for 10+ minutes. Well, you know what that means...

We were fortunate in that Dad had been very vocal about his wishes, to anyone who would listen: "The day someone has to wipe my ass, you call Dr. Kevorkian". He said it often, and he MEANT it!

We had the ventilator disconnected three days later. It took Dad 17 hours to finally leave this world. There was never really any doubt about what had to be done, but it was very difficult nonetheless, especially for my Mom.

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

24. Yes, my Dad in February 1991.

Hardest thing my sister, my brothers and myself ever did.

[uppityperson]

26. mother, 13 yrs 10 months 13 days ago

[Ilsa]

27. No, but my mom was very clear on not having excessive measures taken.

And I believe she skipped hydration and feeding for the last week she was alive. All of her energy went into the business of dying. She went peacefully.

[FlemingsGhost]

28. That's none of your business.

Precisely the point everyone is missing ...

[LeahD]

34. Maybe the question

was put out there to see how many of us could relate to the situation?

[K8-EEE]

37. I Am Interested Too Because....

I think one of the reasons this hasn't been going great guns for GWB & the congress is because more people than they imagined have to face these difficult decisions in our families. Maybe 50 years ago we wouldn't have to but now technology, machines can keep us going artificially for much longer, it is ridiculous to not acknowlege the obvious quality of life issues this brings up FOR ALL OF US.

[calimary]

43. It's helpful to some of us to share this stuff.

Because when you're in the midst of it, even surrounded by nurses and doctors and other family members, you still feel alone, isolated, adrift. Testimonials like these let us all know we share a humdinger of a bond.

Besides, when Michael Schiavo is under attack, I can't help thinking it could have been any one of us facing that same (or similar) situation. There's no stopping these accursed fanatics. NOTHING. Especially since last November.

[Karenina]

45. Actually, it seems people ARE

getting the point! ;-)

It's a PRIVACY ISSUE that resonates painfully with anyone who has gone through it across ALL demographics...

[kodi]

29. grandmother

the decision my dad and i made about broke him up.

and if the government tried to interfere with my family as they have with the schaivo family, tom delay et al. would be recovering right now from a hot lead enema.

[Lisabtrucking]

30. Yes, My Grandmother, she had a stroke and was put on life support

all nine of her children came to the hospital and agreed Mom said she never wanted to live like that. When they took her off life support We were all there, all nine kids 12 grandchildren and my none blood aunts and uncles. She died peacefully and quickly after they disconnected the respirator. May she rest in peace. Even as a kid I thought it was the right thing to do.

[LWolf]

31. Not life support.

I did, a decade or so ago, have the delightful privelege of standing guard over a relative in a hospital. She was 99 years old, extremely frail, suffering from dementia, hadn't been out of bed in a decade, and was living in a small, private home. She was admitted to check out several symptoms. They took pictures of a suspected uterine tumor. Her doctors wanted to put her up in the stirrups and do a pelvic exam, as well as a couple of other invasive procedures. They already knew that a tumor was untreatable; any treatment would have killed her anyway. Lost in dementia, she was sure she'd been kidnapped, and that the doctors meant her harm. She didn't even recognize me. I stood guard for a day until my mom, her executor, showed up with a lawyer. They released her, and we took her back, made her comfortable, and allowed her to slip away later that year.

[merci_me]

32. It was the single worse moment of my life

After watching for 45 days, without hope, my sister and brother and I had to face what we had to. Our wonderful, loving, humorous, gentle father, the man any of us would have without hesitation, given our own life for, didn't deserve to be lying there. We loved him way too much to condemn him to endless days of nothingness.

It was January 21, 1997 and I miss him every day, but if he were still in that bed, hooked up and vacant, well, how could you allow that for someone you love with your whole being?

[El Supremo]

33. Yes, my father. He had wanted to shoot himself...

but I took his pistol away. So he died under the influence of morphine. I'm not real sure if I was right.

[indie_voter]

35. 3 months ago, for my dad. :( n/t

[Blue_In_AK]

36. My dad

In 1989 he had colon surgery, which didn't heal properly, causing peritonitis which made him very, very sick. They operated again and put him on a feeding tube. He didn't wake up for two months and did have a living will, so my mother and my brothers and I gave permission to remove the tube. Rather miraculously, he then woke up and began eating on his own, and ultimately recovered enough to come home, although he was never again 100 percent. Five years later he had a stroke which, although not massive, pretty well wiped him out. After just a couple of days in the hospital, my mother brought him home where he died in his own bed two and a half months later. My mother didn't want to go through the whole hospital routine again, and since he was 79 and had lived a good life, she thought he would be happier at home. Ultimately he stopped eating and drinking, although we would put a sponge of water to his lips periodically, and he passed away very peacefully in his sleep. Hospice was wonderful.

[Doohickie]

38. I checked "yes", but not really

In my case it was my dad. I didn't make the decision though, it was my mom who did, 10 years ago this October. My older brother respected the decision, as did I, but my little brother gave her grief about it. It's been a wound on our family since then. It's gotta be one of the hardest calls a person can make. I'm not sure how anyone can get on someone's case for having to let go of a spouse or parent that way.

[MassLiberal]

39. my dad in January 1992

He died on his own before we actually removed the ventilator, but we had made the decision, and that, to us, was the hard part (even though he had expressed his wishes that we do so if he ever got that sick).

[tyedyeto]

40. Does a DNR (Do Not Recusitate) count?

My family did that for my grandmother 8 years ago and we've never looked back. She had a severe stroke and all of us knew she would NEVER have wanted to live that way. She refused all foods and liquids but no one in the family insisted that feeding tubes or whatever be done to prolong what she would not have wanted.

[calimary]

41. Yes. I had to support my mother in getting the hospital to take my dad

off the respirator. In the last week of his life - he had no life. He was basically a piece of meat. It was awful. AWFUL. In the days before that, as he started failing, while he was still coherent, he tried desperately to fight the respirator. They tie the patient's hands down to keep him/her from pulling the tube out. That's how "desireable" and "wonderful" it is. Everybody in ICU who was on a respirator was like that. Most of them were absolutely inert, lying there comatose, arms tied down at the wrists, big plastic tube in their mouths and going down their throats, family members sitting around their beds either with anxious and terrified facial expressions, or faces filled with utter dejection, futility, and disconsolation. It was AWFUL.

Every day, when I'd drive my mom down there to see him, when sometimes all he could do to acknowledge us was lift his eyebrows - couldn't even open his eyes - she kept murmuring over and over "this isn't living. This isn't living." I finally had to tell her, because he left no living will, that she was going to have to provide a written release so the doctors would be willing to take him off the respirator. Nobody wanted to do so for fear of getting sued. Everybody kept talking about the "liability." After awhile, you just want to scream "FUCK THE LIABILITY! LIABILITY MY ASS!" She finally wrote a letter to include in his file so the hospital would be relieved of their precious fucking liability, authorizing the removal of the respirator. They did so on a Monday night and put him on a morphine drip. He died the next morning.

It was AWFUL. So awful I wouldn't even wish it on duhbya or tom delay - much as I loathe and despise them straight down to my bone marrow. I wouldn't wish that kind of ending, for the patient OR his/her family, on anyone. Even those as vile as limbaugh and ann coulter. Not even them. He succumbed to complications from late-onset diabetes and probably should have had both legs amputated at least a year if not two before he died. Both his legs were purple. His birthday was January first. He lived to "see" the big world-wide party for the Millennium - if you can call it that. He really had no clue by then, however, since he was gravely ill and completely unresponsive. Not even eyebrows. He didn't realize he'd just had another birthday - he was gone already by then, figuratively speaking. He "lived" til January 4th of 2000.

I'm just grateful that he went through only about two weeks of that, and without any governmental interference, instead of 15 fucking YEARS and one obscene circus after another. And we, small family unit that we are, were in total agreement about this. We hated to see my dad suffer. We hated seeing him reduced to a piece of meat, propped up artificially by wires, cables, and tubes of every diameter imaginable. Michael Schiavo must be so drained... I know we were. And we didn't put in even a fraction of the time or agony he has. God, I wish these vultures and jackals would leave him alone and let him send her on her way in peace. Sadly, there won't be any dignity. They've already taken that away from her.

[jdots]

42. X2

Mother then Father