Do you have the right to live? Does your child? Does your neighbor? I bet you know that the dog on the street does thanks to humane society commercials. But when it comes to a sick human beings laying in a hospital praying to live, those moments don’t make the commercials. They are messy and unpleasant to watch. People want to see success and heart warming not heart breaking.
Did you know that I should be dead? That when I was placed in hospice my TPN (all my nutrition and fluids) were stopped. I was told that a person on hospice didn’t have a need to eat or get fluids through IV. Not because of my specific company helping me but a government insurance edict.
I should have starved to death almost 2 years ago.
Yes, I was and am incredibly sick and dying but I am not dead. People on the other end of the phone were telling me that they knew this would mean I would pass away but the rules were clear. The person I talked to was not emotionally involved. I don’t think she actually stopped and thought through the process of dying via lack of nutrition or hydration. Probably in part so she could keep doing her job and not have a break down. I’m not mad at her. It’s the system that is horribly broken, when you can talk to a person and tell them when YOU or the RULES dictate their death should be.
I was horribly sick once and my TPN was discontinued because of sepsis. I had hydration with dextrose only for 13 days. By the end of 13 days I was fuzzy thinking, falling asleep mid-sentence, my body was slowing down (heart rate in the 30’s). I was close to death.
-from LiveStrong- You can live from 8 to 21 days without food.
But like I experienced you will have less and less physical ability, mental acuity, even inability to maintain your body temperature.
Funny how a huge government works… another branch of the government the VA choose to pay for my TPN and fluid needs. Thank you for my life VA.
I was lucky. Others are not or they don’t know who to turn to in times or severe stress of going into the final stages of life. Just because you are dying doesn’t mean you need to die on a predetermined schedule or through lack of common normal care like food, water, and normal medications.
There is a family in Texas that is fighting an over reaching hospital.
Mom Fights TX Hospital in Court Over Son’s Right to Stay Alive
This man is clearly awake and able to participate in medical decisions. I don’t know this family so I don’t know to what degree he is able to help with decisions but I would say that his desire to live should trump anyone else’s decision to stop care. Shouldn’t you be able to say I want to live?
I have heard the counter argument by some hospitals that parents and patients can get too emotional and thus the hospital/doctor needs to step in and make an objective decision for them. LIFE IS NOT A SET OF OBJECTIVES & TESTS. It is emotional. We should be crying and struggling with decisions so deep personal and monumental within our life. As mom I am BEST able to help my child fight for life, even if that is one more day. As a patient I am best able to say what is medically necessary like food and water but not dialysis.
WE CHOOSE, not a stranger or worse a set of rules put into place broad stroking what we can and cannot have based on statistics and budget.
I believe that we ALL have the right to life.
We all have the natural God Given Right to life and no government, institution, or other person should be able to take away that fundamental right.
Too Scared to Share. Too Scared Not to.
What do you think? Do you think that a hospital, doctors, or insurance (state or private) should be given legal power OVER YOU to decide whether or not you should live a few days more… months or more?