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The Suicidal TouristFollow

#102 Dec 12 2008 at 9:29 AM Rating: Good
Soulless Internet Tiger
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Quote:
Picture yourself laid up in a hospital bed pissing and sh*tting yourself on a regular basis only to have to ask the nice young nurse to change your bed pan, except that you haven't the strength to lift your own legs and remove it, so they have to get a second nurse to come in and help roll your limp body onto a secondary temporary bed while they clean the remains of your urine and fecal matter from the night before. Add to that the idea that you might have to be spoon fed jello and hooked up to a drip because you can't stomach anything else or sit up to feed yourself. Imagine not being able to bathe or dress yourself because you haven't the strength to move even one limb more than a few inches at a time.
Sounds like a great vacation.


Probably a horrible career though.
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#103 Dec 12 2008 at 9:52 AM Rating: Good
Skelly Poker Since 2008
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Ambrya wrote:
I'm not afraid of pain nearly as much as I'm afraid of indignity. When and if I face a situation where I know that in the near future I won't be ME (Alzheimer's, I'm looking at you) or when basic daily functions like waste elimination turn into a humiliating ordeal for myself and whoever is charged with taking care of me, that's where I'd want a ticket out the most.
I so clearly remember one of my last opportunities to tend to my mom. I helped her take a crap one day. I positioned the bed pan. I wiped her butt. While it wasn't a terribly pleasant experience, at the time I had my own two kids in diapers, so it was really nothing.

She mentioned her embarrassment, though, and it sparked off a long, heartfelt conversation full of memories (of me peeing my pants during church, throwing up on her lap, etc, etc), lots of laughter, smiles and tears.

It was the last one of those I had with her.

There's nothing indignant about physical limitations.

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#104 Dec 12 2008 at 4:01 PM Rating: Good
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Elinda wrote:

There's nothing indignant about physical limitations.



It depends on who you are. Some people define themselves by their autonomy and independence and sense of self-possession.

I'm glad for you that you had such a special moment with your mother; it sounds as though you both found a place of peace and acceptance with what was happening to her. But the last moments my mother had with my stepfather were NOT special, they were traumatic for BOTH of them. Anyone who knew my stepfather would say that he would rather have died than spend his last conscious moments the way he did, and my mother would certainly be a happier person if that weren't her last memory of interacting with her husband.

It's precisely because YMMV on these sorts of issues that we need to protect and ensure the right of those who can't come to any sort of peace with that sort of existence to choose the way they leave this life.
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