The Longer I Read This Website The More I Want A DNR

mycrofft

mycrofft

Still crazy but elsewhere
Messages
11,322
Reaction score
48
Points
48
Nothing personal, but the EMS obsession with detecting and nurturing the tiniest flicker of possible Krebbs Cycle activity back into full-blown "life" leaves me in fear of sort of waking up someday in an ICU, unable to remember, understand, move, or control any of my ADL's.

If you find me on the street someday and I'm "vegged-out", just give me the analgesia and hold the resuscitation, ok?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
In other words you don't want a diagnosis of "locked in syndrome?"
 
Hear hear!!

Agreed 100%....dying with dignity was long ago discarded and I do not understand why. We use .0001% of a successful case to justify the actions taken on the remaining 99.999% of real cases.

It reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from Dumb and Dumber...when Jim Carrey's character is talking to a hot woman and she says he "does not have a chance"....he says something else and she says "1 in a million"...he thinks and then smiles a huge goofy grin and says "so there IS a chance!"

I have said before and still stand by it, sometimes some of the best medicine we can perform is NO medicine. Preserve dignity, make them comfortable, just be there at the end...this does not make one helpless, this is the mark of the ultimate dignity, compassion and respect for our fellow human.

Instead as a society, we turn our backs on death, we do not care for our close family members, we send them away when it is time to die. Out of sight, out of mind as a death situation only reminds us personally about our own limited mortality--we cannot have that. It is far easier to pretend it does not exist rather than face it head on...
 
g1337436914921846786.jpg










BRB running a full code on a demented 100 y.o in a nursing home because the family/pt hasn't made any end of life decisions
 
My first tattoo will likely be "NFR" in big black letters across my chest.

Sometime in my mid to late 60's I suspect.
 
I'm seriously hoping by the time i'm elderly and debilitated by disease that euthanasia will be legal
 
I've told my family: when the day comes I can't wipe my own butt, when you start thinking about a nursing home, take me out back and put a bullet in my head. Working EMS has only strengthened that feeling
 
I agree. Sometimes it's best not to save a life. I remember in training hearing the instructor talk about working a code for over 45 minutes and even with my minimal training at the time thinking wow that just seems morally kind of iffy. The instructor even said as kind of an offhand comment at the end "of course he was brain dead but we got a pulse back".
This country seems to have an obsession with not allowing people to die with dignity. We shove tubes into them and run current through them and perform all manner of undignified things to them in hopes that we can somehow save a life even it it means sacrificing what it means to be human in the process.
 
The problem with all this is who and what we are dealing with.. Do i want to be 100 yrs old and not be able to walk and enjoy life NOOO!!!.. After a family member of mine passed away from altimers/stopped eating my mom told me not to feel bad for my grandfather for dieing.. He is better off dead then how he was being treated and living life. (she is a nurse). What you feel bad for is the family that is left behind. We as human beings are selfish and unless we have a clue. You do not want someone to die if they are a friend or family.

I don't think I would want my parents or loved ones to die. Would I want to hold on to that.000001 chance maybe if it was my son or wife??... if I didn't know any better. The big argument is playing god. IF we kill them so they don't suffer we are playing god but yet if we give them meds trying to save them we are trying to play god to... So... that 4yr old that fell in the pool and we try to save.. is it worth it.. he could have brain damage or he could not? That 40yr old that gets in a bad wreck that is basically dead on scene but has what we think is a work able rythem do we work them??


That 85 yr old who just yesterday was playing golf but has tons of health problem or maybe has cancer but does not have a DNR do we work them because they are ding anyways?

Do we have the right to chose to work or not to work someone? Do we have the right to choose what kind of medical treatment a family member will receive?

who knows if we do the right things in life... But I do agree I do not want to be a 100 with all my friends dead and i`m eating out of a tube.. =(
 
legion1202 said:
After a family member of mine passed away from altimers
Click to expand...

Alzheimer's...



My family knows that, regardless of my age, I don't want resuscitation and that I will donate my organs. When I get to the age that I can no longer enjoy the freedoms I have now, I don't want to live anymore.



My fear isn't death, it's incapacitation. Becoming paralyzed or a vegetable scares the ever-living bejeezus out of me.
 
I though it had a z in it.. stupid spell check!! i need to get a medical spell check..
 
I am dealing with the same thing now, my Great-Grandmother is 101 and my grandmother, her POA, refuses to make her a DNR so she just got intubated and placed on a vent in a coma. it is horrible, she lived for over a century!!! Let her go comfortably don't draw it out for weeks.
 
At the risk of sounding sarcastic, I WAS being sarcastic. BUt the general principle is sound.
 
Linuss said:
Alzheimer's...



My family knows that, regardless of my age, I don't want resuscitation and that I will donate my organs. When I get to the age that I can no longer enjoy the freedoms I have now, I don't want to live anymore.



My fear isn't death, it's incapacitation. Becoming paralyzed or a vegetable scares the ever-living bejeezus out of me.
Click to expand...

This. Seriously. When i get to that point, take me to the middle of a desert and leave me.
 
I think we should euthanize the elderly and infirmed who wish to die with dignity no matter what the family thinks.

I would go so far as to say that the choice should be taken out of the family's hands. They can be motivated by selfish reasons and it should be decided by an ethics board who has the patient's best interests in mind.

Thats dreaming though.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Don't be silly. I'm sure you wouldn't mind being a non-verbal, vent patient shuffled to and from dialysis 3 days a week. You'll also get a fun G-Tube so you don't even have to chew any food. Somehow you'll weigh 200+ lbs. FUN!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top