The best part of a good life, acts with kind love and unfamiliar small names - Woodworth
Death, like childbirth, is emergence rather than emergency. Death is like flower opening. - Stephen Levine
As a Christian, he was amazed at agreeing with him very consistently about helped suicide. I believe life is like earth school. Suicide assistance meant that you should go out early, but before you finished the semester, you intended to leave anyway, so you could not take imperfections on the course. - Anne Lamott
One of my students suffered from bone cancer and two strokes. He was the terminal patient of the hospital. Often in his suffering, "Can not you help me die now? My instinctive sympathy feelings were mixed with my personal ethics. Being alone with him is my reaction to him, even in a nasty moment, he did not want anything.
He says: "I want to live in Oregon" In a clear moment he lamented that he was a "fatheristic" medical practice. He found some consolation by drawing his will to live with the help of his family.
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In 1976, according to the order of the court, Karen Anne Quinlan took the respiratory tract, and in 1990 the parents of Nancy Cruzan rushed to the Supreme Court and bailed out the daughter from life support. Today, according to prior instructions, the flexibility to adapt to patients is further enhanced. wish. Of course, doctors and patients do not have to go against personal beliefs.
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In the July 18th Los Angeles Times magazine, there was a story of Fred Dickey about Howard Wildfang at the age of 85, the 85-year-old in which the death of lung cancer was prolonged.
"He is sitting in a retired detached apartment, his paper is blurred, his body is contracting ... words have been quite effortfully driven out ..."
He said he decided to legally end his life. In Oregon state, the "dignity death" law (effective in 1994, effective after 1998), if you take protective measures, those who are occupationally diagnosed with a terminal disease (perhaps within 6 months) will suddenly die have the right. In the first eight years of the Oregon state law, 240 people took a fatal prescription.
Howard not only wants to ease suffering for himself, but also hopes to become part of social progress in American culture. In California, bills are being considered that will not give doctors the responsibility to prescribe lethal doses of drugs with great protests from the Catholic Church and others. After death he is looking at another way that can serve the public's spirit by showing to others that he can rule over his life to the end "
Howard is not forced to live longer than technology feels naturally, but he feels the time he goes. In Oregon state, the supported death penal law requires an oral request (15 day interval) and a signature request by two witnesses. The two doctors must confirm the terminal diagnosis before the prescription is issued. The person is judged to be "capable" and must receive notification of options including pain management. Terminal patients, in the case of herbs, were 10 grams of pentobarbital in drinkable solution, about 3 times the amount needed to kill the average adult.
Howard died seven days before the day he was going to take the final medicine.
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In Oregon state, in the case of a suicide by a doctor, it is enumerated that the cause of death is human disease, not suicide. The New York City Prosecution Bureau listed the cause of death of people leaping as "murder", not as a suicide from the 9/11 World Trade Center Tower.
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I will visit a fellow Catholic - eventually ill - suffering from his conscience about how he dies. We talk that Catholic teaching does not need to take extra steps to extend our lives. The doctor says he does not have the chance to succeed, so it is not desirable to keep on turning on the machine. He thinks it is peaceful with his resolve not to apply artificial procedures to him.
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Doctors may not agree to doctor's suicide, but there are other ways to speed up death. Some doctors provide powerful sedation for severe pain. These sedation agents make people sleep deeply and accelerate death. That person wakes up illegally.
Some people may choose to refuse nutrition as a way of death. The doctor reports that the dehydration and starvation condition in the late stage illness is part of the body's protective mechanism and it is surely painless. If a patient does not die from disease first, it will die of dehydration rather than starvation. The brain produces a compound that produces happiness. As the heart beats decelerate and the blood pressure decreases, the lung breathes more violently. The kidney releases toxins that anesthetize the body. The muscles contract and the extremities become cold.
Others are leaving instructions to families and friends to get rid of life-sustaining technology. The doctor can remove the feeding tube in the stomach, stop the intravenous feeding, with prior instruction / support from the family.
Living Wills / Advanced Directive
"Advance directive" is a term covering living will and medical proxy (durable health and medical proxy). Some of our patients have a living intention or "advanced instruction" that human beings artificially commit a prolonged life in the medical condition at the end of life, where there is no reasonable expectation of revenge. . "I'd like to live at any cost, surgery, resuscitation, life support from a mechanical ventilator, tube nutrition, intensive care service ... I want to quell before connecting to a ventilator.
Living Will is a covered medical condition - eg, end of life disease; permanent unconscious state. Minimal conscious state where one wish can not be expressed. It instructs when, when, when, when, when, or when to stop artificial administration of life support therapy, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, resuscitation, body fluids and nutrition. Painkillers and sedatives may require ample consolation care (palliative care), but after that they do not give food / water.
On the other hand, some people want to firmly affirm their desire for aggressive life support care. They do not want to avoid removing the feeding tube, for example, when the condition is clearly "hopeless". They affirm "right to live". In England, activist Leslie Burke went to the court to oppose the guidelines of the General Medical Council on UK overseas medical practices (2004). The Council believes that even if the physician judges that the condition of the patient is very bad, contrary to the wishes of the patient, if it is determined that artificial lactation increases suffering than the benefit, it will be necessary to suspend or withdraw lifelong treatment I admit it. The judge met with Mr. Bark and said he should decide the patient as long as he is mentally competent.
Some of our patients want to avoid being appointed as a conservator and there are people who want to avoid the prosecution costs and designate those who manage assets outside the court jurisdiction, We have set up a trust). Some also put a financial officer by a durable power of attorney. This does not need to be prepared by a lawyer, but it must be notarized.
Let us know our own wishes in advance. Ideally, you should write the will to live, discuss with your agent, and put it on the same page about our wishes.
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