tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6244999628674918029.post3391618856315109519..comments2024-03-29T06:30:37.772-05:00Comments on Bayou Renaissance Man: A sobering reminder of an eternal realityPeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10595089829300831372noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6244999628674918029.post-66098218591541443412019-05-24T15:12:35.452-05:002019-05-24T15:12:35.452-05:00When I started out in my career, I was blissfully ...When I started out in my career, I was blissfully unfamiliar with this process.<br />Now, 25 years in, I'm far too experienced in it, and because of it, they keep giving me these patients.<br />We compartmentalize death, and that unfamiliarity breeds needless fear.<br />If people of all ages weren't so infantilized and separated from the process, they probably wouldn't come in at the very end, and then out of guilt, prolong the agony of their loved ones' passage on that last journey.<br /><br />Stay with them, certainly. Tell them you love them all along, rather than trying to save it until the end, and think you can make up for decades of neglect and indifference by suddenly demanding that every life-prolonging medical abuse and insult be performed.<br /><br />That latter merely tortures your relative, and frankly pisses off the staff tasked with performing the torture, mainly to assuage your guilt.<br /><br />If grandma, grandpa, mom or dad hasn't recovered in 72 hours, they're probably not going to, ever. Fill out the necessary paperwork, get them shifted to hospice care, not the ICU, and let them go in peace in their own bed at home, not at 3AM in some cold room with nurses too busy to sit with you, or with you long gone and home asleep.<br /><br />Take your relatives home to die.<br />Better for them, better for you, better for everyone.<br /><br />And it also won't make their last gift to you a $300K hospital bill for futile services trying to cling to that one shred of life they still have.<br />A shroud kit, by contrast, goes for about $20, and subjects your relatives to no medical insult whatsoever.<br /><br />People die.<br />Get used to it.<br />It should be in familiar surroundings, in their own beds, surrounded by their loved ones, not a bunch of scrub-clad strangers in an antiseptic hall in the lonely hours, trying to do the impossible.<br /><br />And if you're past the biblical "threescore and ten", you've had a full run. Everything after that is cream. Live every moment, but recognize when the party is over.<br /><br />So do your family a favor, and fill out the paperwork of a living will, and designate durable power of attorney for healthcare decisions, so your last days and minutes are not having tubes shoved into all orifices, and having your ribs broken as some strapping young lads preform vigorous but futile cardiac massage during CPR, from which you stand a less than 10% chance of recovery from anyways, especially after the initial round.<br /><br />Going through that once, I can understand.<br />But afterwards, the rule should be to have the family do the CPR.<br />That would nip this nonsense in the bud.<br /><br />Everyone has an hourglass.<br />I have no wild idea when yours will run out.<br />I'm going to do everything I can to prolong yours, if so tasked.<br /><br />But it's probably better if you have some vague idea of how that works, and maybe just recognize that when it's time, it's time, and an extra few hours in a coma isn't going to get you anything worth having with that relative.<br /><br />If you really love them, tell them when they're alive to hear it, so you don't spend their last minutes on earth punishing them for your guilt, or inability to let them go.<br />Aesophttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07834464741531503378noreply@blogger.com