Would you opt for assisted suicide instead of move into a home for the aged?
 

When I was a kid, I remember thinking that I only wanted to live until I was 65 because anything past that was too old. Now that I'm getting into my older years, I realize that 65 isn't the magic number. I have come to the realization that the idea of being put in a home is the real quality that I was thinking of as a kid.

I don't want to be in a home based on what I saw as a kid and what I've experienced recently visiting Skogafoss' grandmother and my own grandmothers paternal and maternal.

This article has been open on my desktop for the past day or so and I have been reading it very carefully and pondering just how and why I don't want to live my years out in a home for the aged.

I live in a Naturally Occuring Retirement Community (NORC) or "aging in place" where people live and stay in their homes. The reality of this is that at some point in time it is too difficult or too expensive to live on your own in the older years.

What do you think about your future of being older and needing to be cared for?

I think "going into a home" isn't the real measure, for me. At one point my grandparents were in an assisted-living facility that was basically an apartment building, but with people who come round twice a day to clean, make sure medical needs are taken care of, cook if necessary... The people who lived there loved it. It was like a residential social club. They all dressed for dinner--you'd see them down in the "restaurant" (lunch and dinner were included with the price of living there, but it was table service with nice tablecloths and everything), all done up in dresses and bow ties, having a great old time.

As their health continued to go downhill, they moved into a facility that was much more hospital-oriented. By the end, my grandfather's slowly filling lungs were drowning him to death in a hospital bed while my grandmother sat in the chair staring into space. They hadn't seen each other in years, and didn't even know they hadn't. Most definitely NOT how I want to end up.

I'd very much prefer to have a legal document prepared in advance that authorizes a painless death when I reach the point that a doctor can certify me non compos mentis, or when I request it every day for, say, a month. I want to set it up so it's available to me as a conscious choice, but I want to have to mean business about it.

seems like a pretty clear murder case to me.

I can't shake the feeling that you're trying to communicate something in the thread title, like subtext:
"Would you kill opt for assisted suicide instead of move into a home for the aged?"

If I'm so far gone that I can't kill myself, I don't see the point in staying alive and kicking... but there may be something I'm overlooking. In other words, I dunno about me personally. Still, people should have the right to kill themselves.

This subject reaches deeply into ones faith and beliefs. What are the real "quality of life" issues that will effect this sort of decision? They have to be unique to each individual.

I can't imagine, at this stage of my life, any circumstances that would make me not wish to see another day's arrival. But I am in good health, have plenty of stimulation, and still have dreams I am chasing.

What would happen if I were stricken with a debilitating health issue? What if a horrible tragedy deprived me of my most precious loved ones? If my life were reduced to merely existing through my days, would I end up feeling like Ms. Schardt? Even considering these things stops my brain, and I can only sit and shake my head.

In response to the posed question, I can only raise more questions. Who will be my caretaker? What are my living conditions? How active is my life? If some stranger is coming to spoon feed me and clean up my bed pan, that just might break my spirit. If family and friends rally 'round like we have for my mother, age 93, I may opt to try to live forever.

My mom and I have pact....legalities be damned.

I was twelve and a half years old when my father was in a plane crash.
It was a small plane , they were flying a shipment of rivets to Tupelo
MI..and encountered rough weather.
something obviously went wrong as they attempted to bring the plane
down on instruments only.

Landing more then a mile from the runway..the pilot was killed instantly.

My father was in a coma for two years...and has never regained
enough brain function to even recognize most of his family from day to day.

I remember distinct conversations around the dinner table..before this
happened..he would never have wanted to continue on this way...

Yet he has..He was 36 at the time of the crash...he is now 72..
I mourned the passing of my father many years ago...and when
his physical shell eventually gives out I will mourn again.

Thanks, actually the original thread title was kill yourself instead of opt for assisted suicide.

In answer to that question - if I was physically able to kill myself and it was my desire to die, I would not ask another to do the job because I was emotionally unable to do it.

But I look at this the other way round. There ARE genuine mercy killings of course, and these are normally involving people who are very close. My opinion of these "professionals" of assisted suicide is that they are serial killers.

No one needs professional help to know how to take poison or do any of the other things that will kill you.

There are cases when someone loses the power to control their own fate and their quality of life is shot, and a loved one takes an action based on a prior agreement. I am not speaking about cases like this, where ending the suffering of an individual is humane.

I am talking about people who seek out the lost and scared and the sickly, people who are strangers to them, and "help them die" - talk them into it and egg them on for the sexual thrlll it gives them to play God.

Yeah, I figured.

I have cell sites that sit on the roof of nursing homes, and those sites are the most depressing creepiest places to go to. You can just feel death hanging in the air like some kind of foul stench.

A place like that is not where I want to spend my final days. I'd rather keep a pitcher of that Jonestown kool-aid in the fridge instead.

You know, I hear you on this. And from what I've seen, we're wired for survival no matter the circumstances.

A couple weeks before my grandfather died, my dad had a conversation with him that basically went, "Look, Dad, we can treat the pneumonia that's happening as a side-effect of the Parkinsons and the feeding tube, and we can probably knock it down or out and buy you some more time. But the doctors say that pneumonia is a very peaceful, easy way to go. They say people just go peacefully in their sleep. So the question is, do you want us to hold off on the treatment?"

My grandfather answered in a husky, raspy, half-whispered voice: "No way."

what a terribly hard decision.

i just erased a whole paragraph because im not quite sure how i feel. i find myself entering all these different mental scenarios and getting different results with each one. i try to take into consideration that this person wanted to die and let this dr kill them, but at the same time im still not quite sure if its right or not. Maybe if she wanted to go out she should have done it on her own. but like strange said, maybe she just didnt have the gumption to do it on her own.

anyway, I wouldnt call it murder. To me murder is more like "i didnt want to die but you killed me anyway, bastard." but would i call it right? i..dont..know.

...man, this is a brain melter.

I have quite a different feeling regarding these places.

When I was a child, my grandmother was quite lost to dimentia. My mother would take me often to visit the nursing home where she stayed. Twice a week, or more. We would sit in the courtyard, surrounded by roses. Grandma wasn't conversant through most of it - she'd sit there in her chair smiling, staring off into space while my mom and aunt chit-chatted and exchanged photographs of the kids. I loved that rose garden. I loved the nursing home. I was quite young and jubilant every time I got to see grandma. The staff smiled when they saw me coming, said I was a ray of sunshine and wished kids would come more often. Eventually her heath progressed to the point where she was bed-ridden. She no longer smiled the whole time we were there. I had to stand right in front of her face when I'd visit, she'd smile, then stare off again. I didn't quite understand when she couldn't go outside anymore, but I'd sit at the foot of her bed and color with her special colored pencils that she kept for me in her closet. Eventually she was gone. Even after her death, we would go regularly to that home to visit with g-ma's friends, help serve dinner, or sing and dance for their entertainment. We stopped going when the staff changed and they were no longer friendly to our presence.

I cared for the other grandmother while attending university. My cousin was there too, we'd trade off bathing her and cooking her meals. She was quite vibrant up until her death. Nothing really stopped her, she just stopped breathing. Didn't want assistance with breathing, so that was that. I spoke with her on the telephone the morning before she passed. Her death affected me so much. I was crushed, it seemed to come out of the blue. There was no extended period of intense care, no foul stench, no listless shriveled face or thinning body. It didn't seem to compute.

Death is a process. I won't mess with mine.

To my thinking there are two issues here:

1) health - there is a big difference between being healthy and old and unhealthy and old

2) the quality of the nursing home - my wife worked summers in a number of assisted care facilities and some of them were little more than racks to hold the dying. Others were like apartments with some added care. There is a large range inbetween.

It would depend on the level of care I would need to receive. I wouldn't be opposed to living in a retirement community; my grandfather lived in a really nice one for a long time and it definitely added a lot to his quality of life. The community had different tiers of care available for its residents; my grandpa lived in a condo in the community where he had a housecleaner come in twice a week and had a dining room to eat in if he so wished, as well as other amenities: social programming, a community garden, expansive grounds with walking trails, and other things besides. My grandmother had Alzheimers and when she got so bad he was unable to care for her, she moved up a tier into the nursing home, and then finally into hospice at the end of her life. Similarly, when my grandfather got sick, he was sick enough that he skipped the nursing home and went straight into the hospice wing.

If I were at the point that I needed daily nursing, or had a disease like Alzheimer's, I would probably opt for euthanasia. But keep in mind I live in a state where it's legal, and half of my family comes from a culture where it's legal (the Netherlands)--in fact, I have a cousin who had terminal cancer and opted for euthanasia so that he could say goodbye on his own terms. I can understand that.

While not opposing the 'right' to die. I'm intending to hang around for as long as I can.

Having said that - I've seen very elderly relatives, who seemed quite ready to go, when that time came. It's not something that I like to turn over too often in my mind.

In many ways, I think that the main struggle is for those elders to be able to participate in the lives of the rest of us (who are working "9-5"). Even now, I imagine that for my parents, the days fly by and they don't get to see us kids. It scares me to think how this ends up.

Time to take some leave off work I think !!

I could never commit suicide. I'm too damn stubborn. I'll fight on through illness and whatever else until my last breath.

Its your life, if ought to be your death as well...

While I imagine something happens at the time of death, I don't makes plans based on this belief (IE, like any scientist that can't prove or explain it, I won't rely on the concept).

If I'm in pain or misery, or the facility is filthy and the food sucks, I'd probably enjoy the right to kill myself.

On the other hand, if I'm not always thereand happy in my foggy world, hey... No harm done.

I have to say your story is very moving. I am sorry for your pain...I cannot imagine.

I have to say that I feel that people should be allowed some dignity in their final moments.

I'm not sure about assisted death mainly because I know there would be people who would manipulate this "permission" in wrongful ways. But there is no such thing as bad knowledge...only people with intentions, well-meaning or harmful. But in order to achieve the good things, the bad things have to be let in to some extent as well - there is always a catch.

For me, I would want to be able to die if I reached a point where I could not think or decide or react for myself. I'd be happy to be in a home with decent conditions as long as I felt able to still do a few small things to give me some joy. I see no reason to end life when it is so short already...unless there is unnecessary pain and suffering.

My grandmother died recently and her death was of the most drawn out and awful I have seen...I felt so sad for her, it was like she was gone already. The worst was when she had small lucid moments when we could tell she was still in there...trying to live. And she was a most wonderful person...truly. It seemed so wrong, all that pain...and still does.

This thread is full of our young and middle-aged takes on this. Older folks see it differently.
I remember my Grandfather saying that when he was a young man, he couldn't imagine why anyone would even want to live to be eighty years old. But when you are seventy-nine, it looks completely different.

Lindy

My opinions on this will probably change as i grow older, but as for now, I would take a home over assissted suicide. The only way i would want to end my life would be if I was in a lot of pain, and had little quality of life, and there was no help for me. Basically, if I'm no longer living, but still not dead yet, I'd choose to end it.

That's a sweeping statement. You might change that to "everyone sees it differently." My father wishes he was dead and takes every opportunity to prove it. He's not quite 80.

I think you hit the nail on the head. It's all about quality of life for me. And I don't think government has a right to legislate something so personal and intimate.

And I guess if I ever go that route they can try me and stick me in jail! :thumbsup:

yes, yes and yes

I work in a nursing home, I specifically work in palliative care. I would never want to be in the situation thatI see so many of my patients in. If I get to the point where I can't recognise my loved ones that's enough for me.

I can handle the idea of physical pain, I can deal with that. What I fear is loosing my mind, my hearing and my sight.

Despite the fact that euthanasia is illegal here I would arrange something rather then live on in that situation.

To be perfectly honest, if I am no longer able to climb out of bed on my own two feet, I would rather be carried out in a body bag. I am an explorer at heart, and to be confined so severely due to health reasons would be a constant battering ram against my spirit and the will to remain alive. Likewise, if my senses were stripped and I had nothing remaining besides my mind, I would also wish to end it.

I believe that everyone should possess a right to their own life and death, regardless of the reason given by them. I am also of the belief that these individuals should be free to seek out and receive assistance without the heavy hand of government preventing it. Life becomes no more than a prison when you lose your desire to be alive. For those who attempt it and fail, their failure should be the only punishment dealt, not any sort of further imprisonment. The assistant should also be recognized as innocent in the eyes of the law.

About 13 years ago I watched as my aunt died from Lou Gehrig's disease, she went from being happy and able to move around to bed ridden and unable to eat or talk in under 2 months, it was the hardest thing I've ever watched happen in my life. She could do nothing for herself, the disease ate away at her muscles, her brain, everything, I watched her suffer and get pumped full of morphine just so they could make her comfortable in her last weeks and days on earth, it was no way for anyone to live, I felt terrible for her, and still do knowing that the last days of her life were filled with pain.

Ever since then I've always said that should I be afflicted with such a disease I will take my own life, regardless of laws, or the way society looks at these sort of things, I couldn't put my family through watching something like that.

As for being put in an old age home, if I can't do things for myself, I don't see much point in living.

I can't possibly answer the OP question at this stage in my life.

I have met many elderly, interesting, vibrant people in "homes for the aged". I have also had family that were "gone" far before they died. They no longer recognized family and friends. They no longer remembered much of their lives. If I am in that state, I'm already gone. Death or life is inconsequential.

I've thought a lot about this, especially after watching ratbastid's grandparents linger long past the departure of their mental faculties.

I think when I'm ready to die, I'm going to wander off into the woods to die of exposure. I'll wait till early winter. Hypothermia seems like a nice, peaceful way to go. Just drift off to sleep...

I think we are entirely too focused on extending life at all costs. People should be treated like adults and allowed to stay or go as they wish. Clinging tenaciously to the buttocks of life (apologies to Ren and Stimpy) seems like an undignified way to spend one's time.

Having watched my brother die, I thought a lot about what his life would have been like if he'd lived. He had a head injury...would he have been the same? Would he have required constant care? Would he have hated it? It seems to me there are things that are much worse than death.

Yes, if I were getting to the point where I was becoming senile, unable to recognize loved ones (or myself), losing senses or something else completely life altering, I would opt for assisted suicide. I will also be asking to have the plug pulled on me if I am ever in a vegetative state.

I'm not sure whether or not I would opt for assisted suicide, I guess I would have to assess the overall situation. I'm pretty sure that if I was in a situation comparable to Terri Schaivo's situation I would not want a feeding tube, or if I was in a situation where I had zero quality of life, but that's a much worse case than the OP. I'm not sure exactly where I would draw the line between wanting assisted suicide and not wanting assisted suicide, but I do think that it should be legal.

I guess it all depends on many factors and really what kind of a life you're possibly going to be facing. The prospect of going into a home does appeal to me on any level.