When my mother can't swallow food, I will not put her on a feeding tube.

[El Supremo]

She has advanced Alzheimer's and is now being spoon fed. If something else doesn't kill her she will eventually loose most of her motor skills. Her quality of life isn't very good anyway right now.

I think there comes a time when you must say "that's all we should do." I don't like the idea of anyone starving to death, but since euthanasia is not allowed in this state, we have no alternative but to make her comfortable (e.g. morphine) and let nature take its course.

Am I wrong?

[sandnsea]

1. Euthanasia in Oregon

You have to be able to administer it yourself. You have to be coherent and speak to two doctors. It wouldn't work for Terri, or anybody else who was in a coma or vegetative, because that was never the intention of the law.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. no you are not wrong

There is no right or wrong here other than interfering in the private decisions made by families in end of life situations. It is no business of anybody but your mother's immediate family, in consultation with a physician. If you are her health care guardian, I'll go one step further and say that it is nobody's business except yours, and you can choose to include other family members in the decision or not, it is up to you.

That is the point. The endless grandstanding interference by the atate in the Schiavo case is a horror and an abomination. That is what is wrong.

[Cleita]

3. No. Alzheimers victims forget how to swallow. That's the time

to put them in hospice from what I understand. It takes about a week for them to go. Morphine eases the transistion. You have to look upon it as a transistion as most of the brain has shut down by then and it's a matter of allowing the body to die. We have had this happen in our family.

[TNDemo]

4. My mother died this way less than two years ago

with advanced Alzheimer's. It was very quiet. There is also the question of IV or not. It was a choice of thirsting or drowning - the fluids don't move well in the body during the dying process and gather in the lungs. We took the advice of hospice and the professionals who said no water is the way to go as the brain emits a narcotic like chemical. Good luck to you. May it be peaceful as well.

[El Supremo]

5. Thanks for your replies.

Yes, I am her Guardian and have control over most medical directives.

I went through this three years ago when my father had cancer but no advance medical directives, DNR, COR or living will. Since no family member objected, the hospice overlooked those facts and let him die without an IV or feeding tube. I would have rather "put him to sleep" since the brain lesion must have been painful. He had wanted to shoot himself, but I had taken his pistol (which he was issued during WWII) and gave it to the police. I was against suicide but not euthanasia. I'm not so sure now.