TexasBred
Well-known member
hahahahaha....forgive me...carry on....On 2nd thought call Caustic Burno. Everybody knows anything and everything he says is "Gospel".Bright Raven":35dwaoul said:
What does it mean to die
- Thread starter boondocks
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greybeard
Well-known member
I have always wondered, if it were possible to survey dead folks, how many would have last-minute-revoked their DNR directives if given the chance?
People fight very very very hard to stay alive, so much so, I recently saw it aptly described as "the ultimate fight".
Tho it has happened on a rare occasion, when was the last time (other than suicide) 'you' (meaning in CT membership general) saw someone fight equally hard to die 'dead dead'?
In 67 years, I've seen it happen exactly......................... zero times.
People fight very very very hard to stay alive, so much so, I recently saw it aptly described as "the ultimate fight".
Tho it has happened on a rare occasion, when was the last time (other than suicide) 'you' (meaning in CT membership general) saw someone fight equally hard to die 'dead dead'?
In 67 years, I've seen it happen exactly......................... zero times.
boondocks
Well-known member
TexasBred":2r4nq0og said:
I think the whole point here (to me anyway) is realizing just how I know absolutely NOTHING about any of this--on any level (scientific, philosophical, ethical, religious....).
Situations like this, fall on your next of kin to decide. Would Bigfoot like to lay there with a bed sore the size of a IHOP pancake, and a catheter in his pizzle? If the answer is no, then pull the plug. Simple actually.
True Grit Farms
Well-known member
Well I saw it happen fours ago June 18th, we dragged my dad out of my mom's room to shower and shave because he'd keep putting the oxygen back under my mom's nose. He knew what she wanted to do and she'd be mad every time he'd save her, this went on for 2 hours. I took my dad home and my son and brother stood at the door and wouldn't let anyone in the room. That was her wish and she got it. RIP Momgreybeard":2h9oe5qa said:
I pray and hope my family will do the same for me. We're going to do the same for my dad...unless he does it first.
greybeard
Well-known member
Well...that's 1. Out of the average of 2.6 million daily deaths in America.
Nesikep
Well-known member
Here's a really interesting, and undoubtedly controversial site, the writer is gay, has had HIV for decades, has seen his friends die, etc.. Here are some of his thoughts on it.. It's long, the interesting parts start around 1/3rd of the way down the page
http://mindprod.com/humanrights/euthanasia.html
Here's an excerpt from a different page of his.. he's got lots of topics, guess he's had a lot of time to mull them over
http://mindprod.com/humanrights/euthanasia.html
Here's an excerpt from a different page of his.. he's got lots of topics, guess he's had a lot of time to mull them over
Nesikep
Well-known member
Here's the meat and potatoes of the link I posted above
I was present when David Lewis took his life in 1990 to avoid the final stages of AIDS. So many people wrote to the newspapers to pontificate on the event. They had absolutely no clue what it was like. After several weeks of lobbying, the newspapers finally let me tell what actually happened. What follows is what I wrote based on an essay I wrote the night he died:
In recent weeks pundits have pontificated on TV and in the press over David Lewis's decision to commit suicide rather than face a lingering death. None of these men ever even met David. I was present the night David died. Here is what really happened Friday night 1990-08-24.
In some eyes, David is a coward and a sinner and I am a murderer for not interfering. If you were present, I think you would see it differently.
Before, when I heard people talk of death as a natural and even beautiful part of life, I thought them ghoulish. I still hate death, but now I can at least understand that point of view.
I know that the way David chose is the way I wish to die as well, eventually.
David was terminally ill with AIDS. He had a stroke so one side of his body was paralyzed, he was partially deaf and partially blind. He was incontinent. He could not eat any food without immediately throwing it up. He had a rapidly growing painful brain tumor, He had toxoplasmosis — a festering of the brain. He complained of the nausea and the pain of the brain tumor. He was expected to die within days or weeks.
David did not want to die. He enjoyed his life immensely, even to the very last second. Unfortunately, living was not one of the options. Two of the choices were:
Go into palliative care, go on higher doses of morphine, die naturally with tube up his nose in a hospital, become demented gaga to use his term, probably alone. He would be too weak to take charge of ending of his life no matter how intense the suffering.
Face the ultimate terror — death, surrounded with the comfort of his friends, in his home, with flowers, music and gentle readings. He could say his last good-byes properly with full emotion. He would have to sacrifice a few days or weeks of suffering. He would have to face the moment of truth when he switched the IV that would eventually kill him.
David repeatedly insisted, "I am not committing suicide. Suicide is when people are emotionally despondent and don't want to live. I am opposed to suicide. What those people need is counseling. I am a professional counselor. I have helped hundreds of suicidal people come to see that these emotional wounds eventually heal. I don't want to die. I have to die. All I am doing is adjusting the time of my death a little so that I can die with dignity. This is completely different. We should have a different word for it."
The press have been phoning every few hours over the last week to ask Is he dead yet? The seven men and three women David chose to be with him do not want to be named. They wish to avoid media hassles and the potential of legal action. David wanted his death to have a greater meaning. He hopes his death will make it possible for other terminally ill people to die gently.
David held a barbecue last Sunday. Friends, sexual buddies and relatives came to say goodbye. We laughed and joked and David told ribald stories of the distant and recent past and how one of his medications made him very horny.
The Friday night was much more subdued. David already had the IV in his arm that he put there himself. It was dripping harmless saline solution.
David kept asking, "What's going to happen to me after I die? I don't know, I just don't know. I'm so scared. Probably nothing. Probably nothing at all — just poof."
I told him about all the myths I knew, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Tibetan etc. One person suggested that perhaps he would meet his lover who died of AIDS last year. I wanted so badly for those myths to be true.
We joked that perhaps, like an Egyptian, he should take a small gold cat with him, or some change. Because of the Social Credit policy of making all experimental drugs free except those for AIDS patients, David detested Premier Vander Zalm right to the end. BC is the only province to attempt to reduce its NDP-voting gay population by charging $425 per month for drugs. If possible, David will haunt the premier's theme park, Fantasy Gardens.
David talked of his experience, many years ago, when he was dead for a short time on the operating table and how he did not want to come back to life then.
I told David, "Look, you have set up this theatrical event here. You don't have to go through with it just because we all came. I think you are doing this too soon. I will not interfere. I want this to be 100% your decision. Don't let anybody rush you. If you want to call this all off, or stall, it is fine with us. "
Other people said similar things, though with more heart. I nearly always sound like a robot.
One guy said, You know this already David. I don't want you to go. Please stay. Then he just started to cry and cry. We all cried.
David has a huge bed. We sat around it and in it. Someone wiped his forehead. Another massaged his foot. Another held his hand. He rested his head on one of the women's breasts. David told us how frightened he was. Someone would say, You don't have to do this. Then he would firmly snap "But I have to! The alternative is too terrible."
We sat in silence. We would cry. David would tell a little joke and we would all giggle. Finally David said, I want you to leave the room. We each hugged him for the last time. David sobbed and clung to us. "I love you so much. I miss you all so much. I hate to leave all this love, but I have to" were his last words.
A few stayed behind. They read from Steven Levine's Who Dies page 243. Louis Armstrong sang on a tape It's a Wonderful World. David changed the bag from saline to a sleeping potion. A while later he went peacefully to sleep. A while later he stopped breathing.
David was always the clown. I never saw him sentimental in the twenty years I knew him till that night. David died supremely happy, at first frightened, then peaceful.
David felt unconditionally loved. He received it before, but never felt it inside. When he threw up, no one batted an eyelid. He was still just as lovable. We adored him the way parents adore a new baby. David felt his own love for his friends more deeply then ever before at any time in his life. He made a proper and fitting farewell.
Outside during all this, a beautiful family of strangers stood a candlelight vigil. They held a sign Your life is precious to us, we care, David. In his last hours David talked of his gratitude at the kindness of complete strangers who had sent good wishes or various unusual offers of comfort.
Some of us cleaned him up, put on fresh sheets and clothes. We all came downstairs. Ms. Brutus (his enormous basset hound) jumped up on the bed. David had asked that we allow Ms. Brutus to lick his face. She made snoring noises. I could not help but think David — this is another of your practical jokes. You are not really dead. I can hear you snoring. It was like being five years old waiting as your sibling played dead — holding the breath. I held his arm. It felt cold, but it felt cold ever since the stroke. I felt his forehead. It was very cool. It took a long time for it to sink in that David really was dead. This body was not David. It looked like a respectable middle aged man — not the outrageous David I knew.
Then I began to feel joy. It was as if David was saying to me I've escaped. I'm free of the suffering. I feel sorry you guys trapped in your bodies. The real David, if he was anywhere at all, was somewhere else. The corpse seemed like a giant wax puppet, of no further importance.
David had asked that we toast him with Champagne. Nobody felt festive. Eventually we followed orders and toasted David. I took a glass down to him and put a few drops in his mouth. The gesture was irreverent, so I knew David would approve.
Love Roedy
I was present when David Lewis took his life in 1990 to avoid the final stages of AIDS. So many people wrote to the newspapers to pontificate on the event. They had absolutely no clue what it was like. After several weeks of lobbying, the newspapers finally let me tell what actually happened. What follows is what I wrote based on an essay I wrote the night he died:
In recent weeks pundits have pontificated on TV and in the press over David Lewis's decision to commit suicide rather than face a lingering death. None of these men ever even met David. I was present the night David died. Here is what really happened Friday night 1990-08-24.
In some eyes, David is a coward and a sinner and I am a murderer for not interfering. If you were present, I think you would see it differently.
Before, when I heard people talk of death as a natural and even beautiful part of life, I thought them ghoulish. I still hate death, but now I can at least understand that point of view.
I know that the way David chose is the way I wish to die as well, eventually.
David was terminally ill with AIDS. He had a stroke so one side of his body was paralyzed, he was partially deaf and partially blind. He was incontinent. He could not eat any food without immediately throwing it up. He had a rapidly growing painful brain tumor, He had toxoplasmosis — a festering of the brain. He complained of the nausea and the pain of the brain tumor. He was expected to die within days or weeks.
David did not want to die. He enjoyed his life immensely, even to the very last second. Unfortunately, living was not one of the options. Two of the choices were:
Go into palliative care, go on higher doses of morphine, die naturally with tube up his nose in a hospital, become demented gaga to use his term, probably alone. He would be too weak to take charge of ending of his life no matter how intense the suffering.
Face the ultimate terror — death, surrounded with the comfort of his friends, in his home, with flowers, music and gentle readings. He could say his last good-byes properly with full emotion. He would have to sacrifice a few days or weeks of suffering. He would have to face the moment of truth when he switched the IV that would eventually kill him.
David repeatedly insisted, "I am not committing suicide. Suicide is when people are emotionally despondent and don't want to live. I am opposed to suicide. What those people need is counseling. I am a professional counselor. I have helped hundreds of suicidal people come to see that these emotional wounds eventually heal. I don't want to die. I have to die. All I am doing is adjusting the time of my death a little so that I can die with dignity. This is completely different. We should have a different word for it."
The press have been phoning every few hours over the last week to ask Is he dead yet? The seven men and three women David chose to be with him do not want to be named. They wish to avoid media hassles and the potential of legal action. David wanted his death to have a greater meaning. He hopes his death will make it possible for other terminally ill people to die gently.
David held a barbecue last Sunday. Friends, sexual buddies and relatives came to say goodbye. We laughed and joked and David told ribald stories of the distant and recent past and how one of his medications made him very horny.
The Friday night was much more subdued. David already had the IV in his arm that he put there himself. It was dripping harmless saline solution.
David kept asking, "What's going to happen to me after I die? I don't know, I just don't know. I'm so scared. Probably nothing. Probably nothing at all — just poof."
I told him about all the myths I knew, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Tibetan etc. One person suggested that perhaps he would meet his lover who died of AIDS last year. I wanted so badly for those myths to be true.
We joked that perhaps, like an Egyptian, he should take a small gold cat with him, or some change. Because of the Social Credit policy of making all experimental drugs free except those for AIDS patients, David detested Premier Vander Zalm right to the end. BC is the only province to attempt to reduce its NDP-voting gay population by charging $425 per month for drugs. If possible, David will haunt the premier's theme park, Fantasy Gardens.
David talked of his experience, many years ago, when he was dead for a short time on the operating table and how he did not want to come back to life then.
I told David, "Look, you have set up this theatrical event here. You don't have to go through with it just because we all came. I think you are doing this too soon. I will not interfere. I want this to be 100% your decision. Don't let anybody rush you. If you want to call this all off, or stall, it is fine with us. "
Other people said similar things, though with more heart. I nearly always sound like a robot.
One guy said, You know this already David. I don't want you to go. Please stay. Then he just started to cry and cry. We all cried.
David has a huge bed. We sat around it and in it. Someone wiped his forehead. Another massaged his foot. Another held his hand. He rested his head on one of the women's breasts. David told us how frightened he was. Someone would say, You don't have to do this. Then he would firmly snap "But I have to! The alternative is too terrible."
We sat in silence. We would cry. David would tell a little joke and we would all giggle. Finally David said, I want you to leave the room. We each hugged him for the last time. David sobbed and clung to us. "I love you so much. I miss you all so much. I hate to leave all this love, but I have to" were his last words.
A few stayed behind. They read from Steven Levine's Who Dies page 243. Louis Armstrong sang on a tape It's a Wonderful World. David changed the bag from saline to a sleeping potion. A while later he went peacefully to sleep. A while later he stopped breathing.
David was always the clown. I never saw him sentimental in the twenty years I knew him till that night. David died supremely happy, at first frightened, then peaceful.
David felt unconditionally loved. He received it before, but never felt it inside. When he threw up, no one batted an eyelid. He was still just as lovable. We adored him the way parents adore a new baby. David felt his own love for his friends more deeply then ever before at any time in his life. He made a proper and fitting farewell.
Outside during all this, a beautiful family of strangers stood a candlelight vigil. They held a sign Your life is precious to us, we care, David. In his last hours David talked of his gratitude at the kindness of complete strangers who had sent good wishes or various unusual offers of comfort.
Some of us cleaned him up, put on fresh sheets and clothes. We all came downstairs. Ms. Brutus (his enormous basset hound) jumped up on the bed. David had asked that we allow Ms. Brutus to lick his face. She made snoring noises. I could not help but think David — this is another of your practical jokes. You are not really dead. I can hear you snoring. It was like being five years old waiting as your sibling played dead — holding the breath. I held his arm. It felt cold, but it felt cold ever since the stroke. I felt his forehead. It was very cool. It took a long time for it to sink in that David really was dead. This body was not David. It looked like a respectable middle aged man — not the outrageous David I knew.
Then I began to feel joy. It was as if David was saying to me I've escaped. I'm free of the suffering. I feel sorry you guys trapped in your bodies. The real David, if he was anywhere at all, was somewhere else. The corpse seemed like a giant wax puppet, of no further importance.
David had asked that we toast him with Champagne. Nobody felt festive. Eventually we followed orders and toasted David. I took a glass down to him and put a few drops in his mouth. The gesture was irreverent, so I knew David would approve.
Love Roedy
boondocks
Well-known member
Sounds like his friend was loved, Nesi.
Was that a famous case in BC?
Was that a famous case in BC?
Nesikep
Well-known member
Not sure how famous it was... it was a long time ago and we don't really keep up with the news.. I found his site looking for computer related topics and was just poking around in it.. Lots of stuff was interesting to me thereboondocks":2da3a5pf said:
Ryder
Well-known member
My wife's mother had wanted to croak out for a long time. She simply saw no reason to live longer.
In the hospital she was setting up talking and feeling better. She had insisted that her daughter go home. She told the hospital people if they put anything down her throat she would come back and haunt them.
She just relaxed and died.
My mother got to the point she was tired of being weak and in the hospital. She refused a rather simple surgical procedure that may have given her more years. I think she figured it was time to go.
I knew one man in his late 80's who had lived a long, productive and busy life who could still get around some but was nearly blind and was just worn out.
The last time I saw him he said, "I don't see why a person has to live this long." He had to go in the hospital with pneumonia and died. I figured they took his cigarettes away from him and the shock killed him.
Elizabeth Kubler Ross worked with many dying patients. She has written books on this and has seen many that more or less made a choice to die. Some actually pulled a fast one on family members to send them home so they could die without others holding them back.
In the hospital she was setting up talking and feeling better. She had insisted that her daughter go home. She told the hospital people if they put anything down her throat she would come back and haunt them.
She just relaxed and died.
My mother got to the point she was tired of being weak and in the hospital. She refused a rather simple surgical procedure that may have given her more years. I think she figured it was time to go.
I knew one man in his late 80's who had lived a long, productive and busy life who could still get around some but was nearly blind and was just worn out.
The last time I saw him he said, "I don't see why a person has to live this long." He had to go in the hospital with pneumonia and died. I figured they took his cigarettes away from him and the shock killed him.
Elizabeth Kubler Ross worked with many dying patients. She has written books on this and has seen many that more or less made a choice to die. Some actually pulled a fast one on family members to send them home so they could die without others holding them back.
True Grit Farms
Well-known member
This is all very sad to me, but the fact is none of us are going to live forever. It makes no sense to just suffer along if you don't care too.
Jeanne - Simme Valley
Well-known member
Hard to type this.
My Ken was told he was dying after 2 weeks in the hospital with blood clots in both lungs - after 6 months of Chemo & radiation and being declared free of lung cancer.
He never slowed down. Went to work every day. Went to all our "normal" shows. We had driven to Harrisburg, PA for the last show. The drive was too much. It WAS the last show.
When the doctors told him there was nothing more they could do, he chose to stop all treatment, have a DNR, and go on morphine. He had suffered for 2 weeks unable to breath. Our daughter came down from Vermont. Ken immediately felt better with the heavy morphine. He called all his loved ones. Told each one something that was special about them and left them something personal - pistol, rifle, etc. My daughter & I laid in bed with him, laughing about things in our life. He was my love, my best friend, my partner, my everything for 43 years. I feel extremely lucky to have had such a wonderful person in my life. Not very many people had what I had. I am blessed. He died free of pain - his choice.
My Ken was told he was dying after 2 weeks in the hospital with blood clots in both lungs - after 6 months of Chemo & radiation and being declared free of lung cancer.
He never slowed down. Went to work every day. Went to all our "normal" shows. We had driven to Harrisburg, PA for the last show. The drive was too much. It WAS the last show.
When the doctors told him there was nothing more they could do, he chose to stop all treatment, have a DNR, and go on morphine. He had suffered for 2 weeks unable to breath. Our daughter came down from Vermont. Ken immediately felt better with the heavy morphine. He called all his loved ones. Told each one something that was special about them and left them something personal - pistol, rifle, etc. My daughter & I laid in bed with him, laughing about things in our life. He was my love, my best friend, my partner, my everything for 43 years. I feel extremely lucky to have had such a wonderful person in my life. Not very many people had what I had. I am blessed. He died free of pain - his choice.
Bright Raven
Well-known member
Jeanne,
Thanks for sharing that. It had to be hard.
I think diseases such as cancer, you get to the point when the "juice ain't worth the squeeze".....bball.
If I had a brain cancer where the treatment is worse than the disease, I think I would get me about 20 cases of Kentucky's best bourbon and see if that might be a new cure.
Thanks for sharing that. It had to be hard.
I think diseases such as cancer, you get to the point when the "juice ain't worth the squeeze".....bball.
If I had a brain cancer where the treatment is worse than the disease, I think I would get me about 20 cases of Kentucky's best bourbon and see if that might be a new cure.
boondocks
Well-known member
Thank you Jeanne. My heart goes out to you and others on CT who lost their soul mates. I am glad that you had 43 happy years and I hope there are a lot of comforting memories of Ken.
greybeard
Well-known member
You think others haven't tried that (or worse) already?Bright Raven":2342efx5 said:
