Living Wills

Politics and an exploration of dying

One of the things that has been thrown against the Obama administration regarding health care reform has been euthanasia. The right throws up a lot-- health care changes will bankrupt us but also that Obama will kill all the old and sick. Can something bankrupt the federal treasury when it would actually be killing off or denying care to anybody who was sick?

As I have said before, the right wing doesn't use logic for its arguments. It is emotion driven and this is just another example.

Some do worry about euthanasia. We saw that as the right fought against Oregon's Death with Dignity law which is not an involuntary euthanasia bill but rather one that deals with end of life decisions. It empowers a dying person (6 months or less to live certified by doctors) by giving them the option of a prescription for pills (two psychologists have to attest they are in their right mind and understand their decision) that would end their life at a time of their choosing, not the disease's. It formalized what has happened for a long time, and it drove the right as nuts as the Terri Schiavo case.

The right wing doesn't like people to have control over their own lives. They claim to be the party of freedom while they would limit entertainment, education, sex, and how you die. A year ago they might have thought a living will was acceptable but today, if you would be talking to a doctor about it at all, it's not. Death panels was the accusation thrown out by Sarah Palin which of course was picked up by right and left media. Don't kid yourself. Left wing media loves these stories and milks them every bit as much as right wing media.

Since this all reminds me of our personal experience with end-of-life decision making with my mother-in-law, I thought I'd share it. The photo above was taken in 1998. It is of me, her granddaughter, her first great grandchild, and her son. She was 94. About a year later, she fell in her living room (she lived in an assisted living apartment) shattering her hip. Farm Boss raced to the hospital to find out what the situation was to be. The doctors recommended a hip replacement.

That took some real thinking on her part and ours. At that point she had about 5% kidney function and at almost 95, what would be the odds of her being able to withstand such major surgery? We knew how hard it would be on her body. Still she also had a spunky spirit and without that surgery would be doomed to stay in her bed the rest of her life.

The decision, from doctors and family, never for one minute revolved around the cost but instead quality of life. The decision was not impacted by the Oregon Death with Dignity law because she was not someone with a terminal illness. Although she had failing kidneys (Type II Diabetic), there was no end of life prognosis. The idea of her taking pills to end it more quickly never arose with anybody and I don't see that it would with the health care reforms that are being suggested as very few states offer the option anyway. It's been rarely used in Oregon although more have gotten the prescriptions to know they could if they wanted but died comforted by being in control.

My mother-in-law came through her surgery but suffered a lot. She never really recovered and although she had physical therapy, she died a little over three months later in a care facility that offered more services than her assisted living complex had been able to provide.

Was her surgery the right choice? It was expensive but who could know for sure that she might not have gotten up and made it back to being as mobile as she had been? I think it was the right thing to do but still know it was a hard choice which was made by her doctors, her, and her son as it should have been.

My mother-in-law is a prime example of the dire possibilities that the Republicans are trying to use to frighten the elderly. She is also a good example of someone who had a living will.

Anytime she had any surgical procedure she was required to once again sign a statement of what she wanted done should she be unable to respond in anyway other than as a vegetable. She did not want to live on tubes. This choice in her case, and my bet is in most all cases, is not about economics; and if any of you have faced it with a beloved family member, you know it's not. It's about quality of life. There is more chance it would be about economics with the current insurance (profit oriented) companies in control than with the government (Medicare).

Currently the Republican hysteria has led to taking from the bill the right for any Medicare patient to go in for an appointment (their choice not a requirement) to discuss end of life options in their current medical situation.

Thank you Congressional representatives and especial thanks to Sarah Palin for hypocrisy and once again taking from the ordinary person choice regarding their own lives.

The irony of the 'family based,' Republican party is they don't trust the family to make these decisions. They want rules in place that dictate the choices and we see that time and again. The irony of Democratic, so-called progressive party is their lack of courage to do anything they claim they want. Maybe they never wanted any of it to begin.

The right wing should be ashamed of itself but it isn't. Emotion driven as it is, shame is not one of those emotions. What it has done, in an attempt to destroy Obama's effectiveness, is what they did with Clinton. They go after things that have no real meaning (birth certificates, death panels). Yes, Democrats went after Bush but on policy regarding actual issues like fighting wars, torturing, spying on its own citizens, eliminating the right to trial when accused.

The right isn't attacking Obama on his ideas which is what they should be doing. It's on his race (if you don't believe me look at what even legislators are saying, the signs at these right wing hate rallies, the birther movement, the tea partiers ). The right also goes at it by throwing out a myriad of charges (in the case of Clinton it was the death of Vince Foster, mysterious deaths around the Clintons, sex scandals) and seeing what sticks. When the right finds a charge that works, they all jump on it and that's what happened with living wills.

I have to revise my will and make sure that I add the living will part to it. We do this with a computer program that we purchased. You have it notarized when you sign it at a bank, and it's very legal. I know I would not want to live as a vegetable and would not want extraordinary measures taken to keep me alive if something should happen. Temporarily on a feeding tube is one thing but permanently is not. Extending dying is not living.

Although I have told all my family members of my desires, I know from the experience with my mother-in-law that you have to sign such things again anytime you enter a hospital once you are a certain age-- or you used to before the party of death began raising such a stink. And stink is the only appropriate word for what I have been hearing. It's sickening and, as usual, doesn't help any real discussion on health care reform.

There should be a real discussion on how to fix what is a damaged program and not just based on those without insurance but the growing cost of having medical care period. If you start with protecting the profits of insurance companies, you aren't ever going to have meaningful help. If you don't know health care's true cost today, it's because you already have an employer or government paying most of yours. That's not free, you know!

[For those of you interested in astrology, check out: Rainy Day Extra for Lynda Hill's newsletter regarding August 20th]