We wouldn’t have been that detailed, either, but there’s a standard form where I live, so we just filled it out when we did our regular wills.
This is my thought as well. It’s also the most common type of experience I hear shared. We allow ourselves to give our pets the gift of release but not people.
On the other hand, I heard a story last year that I found quite disturbing. A gentleman I know is my age (early 50’s) and has lung cancer. When he was in the hospital for surgery to correct an acute issue, he was pressed to sign a DNR. By all sounds, they were fairly insistent. This is a person who, other than cancer, has been in excellent health (former pro BB) and had to be quite clear that he wanted all the Rs. He wasn’t done with his life. I found the story quite disconcerting.
I plan on taking up extreme hang gliding bird hunting at age 72 or so, with a shotgun, over Gaza.
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That’s actually my plan for the zombie apocalypse. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t survive. I’d prefer to go out in a euphoric haze. That’s just me though.
Can Israeli missile defense systems tell the difference between a crazy suicidal jew with a shotgun in a hang glider and an incoming Hamas rocket?
Or is that the point lol.
I had medical power of attorney with my father - ahead of my older siblings. You make very hard decisions and whilst things like you’re being compassionate or you’re doing the right thing are nice things to tell others and even ourselves they mean squat if you are taking away the life of someone who wants to live. That is simply not your decision to make and it is a burden you carry for your life, if you are decent.
The difficulty is compounded because we are people and we are awful at predicting what we will do, how we will think and what decisions we will make in situations we have never been in. It gets more difficult again because we are people and we are excellent at projecting ourselves onto others.
These factors make it very hard to differentiate between the person’s true wishes at that moment, the wishes of next of kin/doctors and how the next of kin interprets what the dying person would want. Even if my dad had the call and wanted to die, no doubt somewhere in those final minutes, at least the thought to go on would have challenged his thinking and not in a fleeting way - as it does with many people who survive suicide attempts.
Maybe my father was happy to deal with the suffering. Maybe he is like me and takes solice in suffering. Maybe he had enough of the suffering but wanted to just sit quietly with his grandchildren for one more day, even if he was 99% out of it. Or maybe he did just want it all to end.
I happily admit that I was making uninformed decisions, despite being close to my father and despite knowing what his wishes leading into things As I said above, we’re shit at predicting what we want outside the moment and we are shit at diffentiating between what we want and what we think the others want.
It was an emotionally charge and extremely stressful situation. It would be pure luck that I made the decision my father would have wanted me to make. Compassion, peace, whatever sticky words make us feel better when were out of the situation count for very little to someone like me after you’ve been through it.
The only comfort comes in knowing that I believe my father would have believed that I did act as an agent for him and that where I failed to make the right call - and I almost certainly did on countless moments - then the he would forgive my mistakes, that much I do know. For all the rest, I take full responsibility and I don’t shy away from it by believing I was acting compassionately.
So, I believe in assisted suicide for the terminally ill but I understand that some cultures take the decision away from people because we are people and we suck at making the right call in situations like this.
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I tried, but it turns out that it metabolize too quickly.
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I had an interesting experience with my father. He had a very aggressive type of cancer in his brain, lungs, liver and pancreas. He went down very quickly. The last week he seemed for all intents and purposes to be dead but still breathing and it was just a short matter of time before he was gone. My 2nd oldest brother was in the Navy and got leave as soon as he could to come back and have a couple of days before he died. The night he arrived we went to the hospital and he sat down next to the bed just to talk and pray and say goodbye. As he did, my dad reached over and grabbed his hand, pulled him over and told him he loved him. That was the first time he had even moved in a week.
He passed away a couple hours later after we left.
We’re all pretty sure he was holding out for the last one to come home so that he could say goodbye.
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My grandma was supposed to last 6 months in hospice. She took a downturn after 6 hours. She lasted until my uncle (her son) made it in from Harrisburg at 2am. We were all talking and thought she was comatose on morphine. Till she chortled at one of my uncle’s jokes and drifted away 5 minutes later.
Because of experiences like that the wife and I have decided that a terminal illness is going to result in our doing Evil Kanevil Grand Canyon attempts with no safety gear. That’d be preferable to hospice and life support.
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I used to think that I’d like to take one epic last ride down a big mountain out west and go ripping off of a cliff into the big snowboard park in the sky.
Then I saw this:
And then there’s that giant shelf all the way across the bowl cracking and about to avalanche.
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This is why it’s so important to talk early and often about your wishes, and why at my house we say things like “you promise you’ll kill me, right?” We talk about the specifics of “meaningful life,” too. The bar is higher for my husband, who is less people- and written-word-oriented than me. I could be content if I can go to the bathroom alone and post around on the internet in addition to spending time with family. Books nourish my soul. These things are not enough for him. He would feel caged.
I had to disconnect my father, who died suddenly enough that we never spoke of it at the end. While lucid he was expected to live, then he wasn’t lucid so there was no conversation about what we were finding out (20% heart function, not going to live independently again), then he wasn’t awake, then he was on life support. However, he’d made clear over and over again that he didn’t want to be dependent. During the three days he was hospitalized, which started with a cardiac arrest, the hospital put him on a cardiac diet and I remember him waving a sugar packet he’d hidden and announcing “I’m not going to live like a cripple!”
So there was no concern when I made the decision that I was doing the wrong thing from his perspective. I know I did the right thing. I had support from other family members, which helped, but ultimately it was my decision - to honor his wishes.
Suicide is different from end-of-life. Yes, people go on to appreciate having survived, but that doesn’t happen at the time generally. Most serious attempters wake and are stunned and upset to find themselves alive. Gratitude for the second chance comes as life improves due to the attention their issues receive (meds, therapy, family realizes how unhappy, etc).
You really can’t compare. In five years would your father be in better shape, as would the majority of suicide survivors? No. He would have been disabled to whatever extent prompted the call to end life support.
We discuss these things because they are important. Your father expressed his wishes for a reason. In reading your post it sounds like you were acting on behalf of him and honoring his expressed wishes, despite them being different from your own, which would prioritize holding on.
So I would say to you that you may not feel that you were being compassionate, but you absolutely were being a dutiful son in carrying out his wishes, which is compassion, because that was the responsibility you were given, not the responsibility to guess what his wishes might have been moment-to-moment had he been awake. So good on you for being brave. I hope my kids will honor my wishes. That’s the reason I state them. If my husband dies before me I will think long and hard about my kids and which of them will be brave enough to follow my wishes and not get sidetracked by fear and uncertainty.
Watching large hearted friends that struggle to say no be taken advantage of by a leech of a friend and not being able to say anything.
Flip side: Satisfaction when that friend gets fed up with the leech and regains control of the situation.
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If these people are your friends you can always say something.
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I have some Hatfield squats programmed in my next cycle. I didn’t want to hold on to the uprights of the rack so I bought some handles that fit my gym’s racks.
Today, I watch someone doing Hatfield squats and they just put a barbell on some low j-hooks infront of them and held onto that.
I how did this video turn up 2 days after I buy these stupid things and not before, despite lots of research? Google is taunting me.
Google can do some crazy stuff. I had to replace the contact switch in my a.c. unit this past year. The old one was from like the '70’s. When I entered its serial number, the most current compatible switch came up without any doing on my part.
Literal lulz! The first guy has a jacked upper body though.
Has anyone in this long thread mentioned idiots who leave shopping carts in parking lots, particular in places in which they will move and hit cars if the wind blows?
Although rationally I think the following behavior shouldn’t annoy me as much as it does, it nevertheless does: people at work, co-workers or not, telling me I look serious, as if I’m thinking, or busy. Usually I wish to reply, “I’m at work! Aren’t I supposed to be busy, serious, and thinking?!”
“What’s wrong?” and “can I help you?” are sometimes annoying too. One time, while waiting for a one-person bathroom, someone asked me, “What’s wrong?” I blurted out, “I’m waiting to take a —and I’m uncomfortable; that’s what’s wrong.” Another as I was walking down the hall, a resident asked me, “I see you all the time walking up and down this hall and you always look so serious; you never smile.” I wasn’t annoyed but I replied, “Look, I’m not trying to be sarcastic, but wouldn’t walking up and down these halls smiling be a bit strange?”
I’ve been asked “what’s wrong?”, usually when nothing’s wtong, for 27 years, since twelve years old. It annoys me less now. My friends and uncle concluded this question isn’t going away for me so I should just accept it. I can’t change the configuration of my face. Resting jerk face, perhaps?
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May I suggest gaining fat in your face? That way when you look pissed people will assume you’re just hungry. Lean angry guys look like they’re plotting murder.
Alternatively, the next time someone mentions your angry face smile like this. That should make them leave you alone.
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I have to make a conscious effort to relax my eyes and brow line or people think I’m angry when I’m really just thinking.
Conversely, when my face is relaxed and I’m generally just neutral or happy, strangers, security people and cops thing I’m either lost, on drugs or both.
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I have resting angry face, and have to make an effort to appear pleasant. It’s nice when I just want to be left alone, though.