Now let me die- very moving article

durhamjen I can feel your pain as my dh did just that, he was in the lounge, dd had just left (4 months pregnant) he just turned round and said "I'm never going to see this baby born, he sat on his stair lift and said "I think it's time I went" I helped him into bed, he stopped eating/drinking, barely sipping anything and left us around 10 days later,peacefully.

tigerhouse what a sad and terrible time you have had. It is so difficult when someone so dear to you goes from hoped recovery through complications and rising hopes then further decline. I had a similar experience when my father died. But losing your wife like that is so much more difficult because the bond is even dearer. I do hope you have family to support you at this time, like granjura all one can say is and sympathy.

Thanks, biker. Hard to watch, isn't it? After four years, even though you know they knew what they were doing, it's still difficult to reconcile heart and head.
Easy to talk about, but doing it takes guts.

Starbird, you have the most wonderful son as you know, plus the most supporting family, can understand how he just wants to be with his wife, after all these years, to him she is the girl he fell in love with and married, wish a miracle could happen and she recovers but it must be the most difficult time for him.

Tigerhouse, you looked after your wife to the end and did as she wanted, as she would have for you. The pain of losing your sole mate never goes, but as time goes on you carry it in your heart and go on living. It's been a long time for me, I don't talk about it anymore because when I do it's as if it was yesterday, but I know I did all I could. I am lucky that I can go on holiday, I never go where I went with my husband, do things differently but get a lot of pleasure planning it, reading up on the place I am visiting.

To have your loved ones best interest and well being to the end is what matters, respecting their wishes, you can do no more. The medical profession respect that, so if your wishes are known, that is what will happen.

Growing old isn't for wimps is it? These posts are so sad and so brave

My Mother died just under 4 weeks ago at home. She was 94 years old and very tired. From being a vibrant active lady until 90yrs old, she slowly declined physically with cardiac failure. She had a DNR and this was suggested and handled very sensitively by her GP, with me in attendance. When she died, i was able to hold her hand and stroke her face and tell her I was with her. I felt no guilt about not phoning for an ambulance or trying to reverse this sudden event. She passed in her own bed in her beloved home and I am so grateful. My Father had died in a busy NHS hospital and it was so different.
Please consider a DNR for an elderly loved one. Discuss it with him or her and the family and of course their health care team.

I don't know if grannylynn is from the States or the UK or wherever, but here in the States, we also have such a thing as a Living Will, as well as Do Not Resuscitate forms. If a dying person has a LW that says they are not to be kept alive beyond a certain point, by artificial means, as far as I know, the doctors have to respect that. Same of their medical POA person signs a DNR. I know a number of people who have been allowed to die, due to LWs and/or DNRs.

Again, I don't know if that's true in the UK or elsewhere, also. But if it is, then neither modern tech or doctor's (understandable, I think) concerns about malpractice suits can keep a "shell of a person" hanging on - not if their wishes to the opposite (if that's what their wishes were) have been made known.

The article is very moving. But here in the States. at least, the sad picture of the elderly woman being kept alive w/o dignity and so forth, doesn't have to be if people think ahead/really don't want it that way.

Just want to add that some people can't face that dying person "by the window," can't manage to see that "little girl (or boy, as the case may be)" in their eyes, etc. So the contrast the article makes isn't fully accurate, IMO. I get the general point though, obviously.

tigerhouse my dh also waved 3 times about 20 mins before he left us, he waved towards the bottom of the bed, I was sat at his side so I will never know who he was waving to.

Wendysue, my husband had a living will, and that was why he was allowed to die the way he did in his own bed, in the UK.

Having lost both my parents to AZ and my in-laws to cancer over a 2 year period we well understood the wish to let them go. Despite having dementia I firmly believe my father willed himself to die having seen my mum in a care home for 18 months which he hated before he too ended up in hospital. In the 6 weeks he was in there he stopped eating and lost over 2 stone in weight. When he went into the care home with mum he steadfastly refused to eat and after 2 more hospital interventions I was told there was nothing more they could do and I insisted he went back to the care home where I could be with him. I sat with him for hours holding his hand and playing music to him. He was unconscious but would squeeze my hand occasionally so I believe knew I was there. The day my youngest son managed to get up to see him (he lived 3 hours away and was very close to his granddad) I quietly told him he could now let go - he passed away a couple of hours later. Both my in-laws who were completely lucid to the last waited until they had seen all the family members and then quietly slipped away on there own. My FIL even told us to have a nice life when we saw him 2 days before he passed which gave us quite a lot of comfort when it happened.

It upsets me so much to think that someone would rather starve to death than go into a care home or hospital, that I don't want to think about it. But how many times is this happening, and why. All people deserve dignity and comfort to the end.

While horror stories about care homes and hospitals get published regularly, compared with the many thousands in them the problems, however dreadful are relativly few. The problem is older people read them and expect every home or hospital to be like that.

But I have known several people, including close relatives who said they would do anything rather than ever go in a care home because they have heard all these terrible stories, then move into one and realise how nice it can be, the worry and stress of managing at home with carers and the pressure they know they are putting on dear ones has gone and they can relax. My DU went into a care home where he lived for six years and said he had never been happier. No responsibilities (those were all mine), regular meals and company.

DF spent his last three months in hospital, he certainly did not want to go to hospital. He had been trying to hide the severity of his illness to avoid it yet when he got there he could not speak too highly of the care he received.

Sadly too often people say things like they would rather starve or die rather than go into a care home or hospital because their perceptions about both places are imperfect.

My husband had been in hospital lots of times.
The last time he was in, he was found crawling on the floor to get to the toilet as none of the staff heard his calls for help and they had put his buzzer out of reach.
There was winter vomiting disease on the ward so I said I would take him home as he was waiting to go to a different hospital for radiotherapy for his brain tumour. Had to ring up our GP to get permission. She said she would take responsibility for him. It took them from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. to get a porter to take him to the car. All the time we were worried that he would get the sickness.

A good reason not to want to die in hospital, I think.