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My wife is a CCRN nurse. You would not believe the horror stories she tells me about some patients and family member expectations. Now that she is the manager of the unit, she is exposed to even more horror stories. Believe me...they are heart wrenching. Picture a frail 90+ year old with a terminal illness. Organs are shutting down one by one. But the family does not want to sign a DNR (do no resuscitate). They want everything possible done to save their loved one, which is understandable. BUT there is a limit to what modern science can do. There is a limit to what the human body can endure and possible to recover from. Most times they break ribs and do other damage during the code, which may or may not contribute to their inevitable death.
Personally, there is a minimum quality of life I'm willing to endure, along with what I'm willing to put my family thru. Living the way she does is not acceptable in my book. From what I read, she made it perfectly clear she would NOT want to live like this. Its been 15 years since her heart attack. There is nothing that can be done to help her. She has permanent brain damage and in a vegetative state. She has permanent damage to muscles and joints. Even if, by some miracle, she would regain some brain function, she would always be dependant on help. If there was no living will signed, I believe its up to her husband, who she already talked to prior to the accident of what her wishes would be if something like this would happen, to decide if the tube should be removed or not. No government, no court, no radical pro-life group should decide this - period. And from what I hear, dieing from an electrolyte imbalance (starving to death) is a much better way of going then the other most likely alternate ways she'll eventually die from.
I pray for her, her family and to give them all strength to do what is right, and what Terry Schiavo would have wanted.
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