What are your thoughts on euthanasia?

By CerebralEcstasy · Jan 8, 2018 · ·
  1. A large part of me thinks it a heart wrenching mercy. In 1997, I was 24 years old, a married mother of three. November 10th my Mom and I had done some shopping together and we had a good laugh about a number of things. Namely the 24lb box of bananas we had ended up with. It was the last day I seen her 'alive'.

    Normally, we were as thick as thieves, I'd spend a lot of my days just hanging out at her house, and vice versa. So the next day, I was feeling under the weather and so was she, so we decided to just stay in our respective residences. Later that day I got a panicked call from my Mom's boyfriend, who stated that my Mom had a heart attack and they were taking her to the hospital. It never dawned on me that she'd actually die. I figured, okay, heart attack, she's still alive, we should be able to come back from this. Holy Kindergarten Batman, was I wrong.

    We got there, the nurses and doctors were working on her, after she stopped coding, they finally let us in. Her eyes were open, and at that point, I knew she was no longer there. See, I have a medical background, I've seen dead eyes before, and they were dead. She wasn't there.

    Yet, the machines kept forcing her to breathe, and her heart muscle, while still beating was damaged beyond repair. At that point, I don't know what to do and I remember begging her to stay with us. I'd like to think she heard that, but in some respect I almost hope she didn't. It was such a selfish thing to say with her in such a condition.

    Mom, please stay, we can't live without you.....


    She kept coding, and I kept asking them to stabilize her. I left the room, and while they worked on her some more, I sat in a calming room, a photo of a tree in the rain with lightning flashing across it brought to mind the words from a James Taylor song 'Fire and Rain'.

    Just yesterday morning, they let me know that you were gone.
    Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you.
    I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song,
    I just can't remember who to send it to.

    I've seen fire and I've seen rain.
    I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end.
    I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend,
    But I always thought that I'd see you again.

    I can't recall if I prayed or not, but I remember feeling a calm wash over me. In that moment, I knew I loved her enough to let her go, and so the next time the nurses and doctors came out I went in and said to her...

    Mom, I love you enough to let you go....

    It wasn't long before she began coding again, and I took the nurse aside and said, that's enough. It's enough. She had coded 22 times, I had talked to the cardiologist who assured me that the only thing happening with her was that her heart muscle was in fibrillation, I had allowed her to go through that several more times, still hoping for something, anything and then she was gone.

    My brother, my husband and myself formed a triangle in the hallway outside her room, this having gone long into the night of Nov 11, our arms linked, faces wet with the tears of disbelief and unbearable grief. In so many ways I was thankful that November 11 is our military remembrance day here, because it would be years before I could go through that day without wanting to step in front of a bus.

    And so, with that my thoughts are that sometimes its a mercy to let someone go. If their time has come, if their illness too great, I think we have a responsibility to discuss these things with them and to be able to make these hard decisions when they're unable to. My mother Pauline and I had these discussions. I knew her thoughts, and I knew that I loved her enough to let her go.
    Carly Berg likes this.

Comments

  1. GrahamLewis
    My short answer, in my view euthanasia is acceptable, even preferable, in situations like the one you describe. I think our culture is far too invested in keeping alive folks who are ready to die. Part of it is simply social inertia (we've always done it), part of it the way our medical providers and insurers have a vested interest in extraordinary measures, part of it fear of legal consequences in our litigious society, and part of it because of our irrational fear of all death. No one who wants to live should be denied that, but, IMHO, those who are beyond that stage deserve to die with dignity.
      CerebralEcstasy likes this.
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