<p>Kluge,
Perhaps there is a tendency to think that since grandma is too old to work, she should not have to pay for it???</p>
<p>Anyway, this is such an important discussion for all reasons, ranging from political to spiritual to financial to emotional, to familial…</p>
<p>Knowing how to deal with old age, with terminal disease does not just “happen.” And, while each case is different, going down the learning curve individually with all this seems to be a pretty inefficient approach.
My personal experience with all this started when my super-healthy 77 year old mom was diagnosed with Stage 4 of a very rare, never really ID’d type of cancer. There were no warnings, no symptoms, no other tumors, except the metastic ones they discovered in her spine after a neck-ache!</p>
<p>This was a HUGE shock, as we all expected my mother to outlive my father by a long shot for many reasons. In her case, the oncologists at one of the top 5 cancer centers re-diagnosed her, and then turned her away and said she should get her affairs in order. She and we were so confused… ? NO treatment for her? Well, they said she could do nothing to save her life, that she was too far along, and that there were no treatments for the types of cancers she may have had, and that any chemo would at best extend her life by 2-3 months. Meanwhile she was feeling FINE, and really wanted, needed to do something to fight this disease!</p>
<p>Yet her wish was not to travel around looking for new treatments and clinical trials. And my father refused to consider alternative treatments, most of which would have entailed travel, anyway. On and on, these wishes circumscribed what actually happened. How informed were my parents about the medical issues- not very! The availability of chemo options was very limited in the area where she lived, so that was another factor…</p>
<p>Anyway, she was put on chemo locally and had a good three months, then began to decline, lose her hair, and such, at which time the chemo was stopped. Then she lived another four months, and while it was not super painful, it was a living hell for her. My father never really understood that she was unhappy being alive if it meant being a weak bed-ridden invalid. He seemed to need to feel that he was keeping her going, the extending her life at all costs was the goal… Meanwhile, I personally think the chemo may have killed her, not the cancer. Who knows, that may have been a mercy since tumors in bones create nightmarish pain and breaks, and that never happened to her, thankfully…</p>
<p>The experience with hospice was interesting. She held on to life (as it was) at home until I was able to help her organize her possessions, but then wanted to go to the local hospice. This was her signal that she needed to leave this life. By then, she and my father had dealt with all the legal aspects, and it was just a question of time. But he kept trying to get food into her, which revealed his urge to keep her alive.
He was very very upset about the hospice experience, but this may have been my mother’s choice, as discussed by many others above. He felt they drugged her up with much too much stuff as soon as she got there- he says she was already gone and she never came back from that super-medicated state, and he never really got to say good bye. She passed away during the short time my father was not present at her bedside, although other family members were there. I think she was also very worried about how he would go on take care of himself without her…</p>
<p>Death is such a complicated thing. As a society, we need to have much more exposure to it, the options, the process, the legal choices, the spiritual attitudes, the medical techniques… My family went through a crash course in cancer, then in death in one long and agonizing year. It has changed me forever, but I wish I had known more before it all started.</p>
<p>To all here, a good life, AND a good death.
Be informed. Enjoy every minute. Be prepared.
And exercise your choices!</p>