Emergency room: was Re: My Predicament

[Guest guest]

Charlie De wrote:

....

> Five years ago, my mother was in a nursing home dying of

> advanced Alzheimer's. She was 89 years old. She suffered a

> stroke and was taken to the local hospital. I was her health

> care proxy. The doctors in the ER refused to listen and started

> advanced treatment to save her life. I called my lawyer. He

> came to the hospital, opened his cell phone and told the ER

> doctor he was calling 911 to report the felony battery on my

> mother. I have never seen anyone's attitude change 180 degrees

> so fast.

Charlie,

Having had Alzheimer's Disease in my family, I know that you did

the right thing.

My Dad suffered a heart attack at age 87.  He was suffering from

dementia, partial blindness, inability to talk, inability to

walk, incontinence, and continuous pain.  In his better days he

had signed a will asking that no extraordinary measures be used

to keep him alive.

I got a call from the emergency room where he was taken from the

nursing home where he was living at the time.  He was unconscious

and already half dead.  When I told the nurse who called me that

he had signed a document stating that he didn't want to be kept

alive by extraordinary measures, there was a shocked silence at

the other end of the phone.  It was obvious that she couldn't

conceive what kind of a son would want his father to die like

that.  I don't know what actually happened - whether they stopped

trying to revive him or they just failed, but I know he was

declared dead shortly thereafter.

Medical professionals have experienced a lot and yet I'm not sure

it always comes home to them what is at stake when a suffering

person with no hope of recovery of any part of his real life is

forced to continue living.

    Alan