flowgo Asked October 2011
Why are DNR's not banned and why is there still talk about legalizing euthanasia?
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You were told that you would only live for five years after diagnosis, and that was nearly fifteen years ago.
Oh and to communicate you have the use of only one eye to answer yes or no.
How long would you want to live/exist like that?
Now what was that about a DNR?
Why should I be compelled to exist in as a vegetable because someone else thinks I should lay in bed and look like a science experiment for a sci-fi movie. If my heart stops let me go. That was my Dad's decision and it was respected. He knew the end was near and wanted heroic efforts to extend his life. Personally I knew he wanted to live about two more weeks so he could pass on the same day as Mother did. He was tired of moving from one facility to another so he could comply with insurance.
Do as you wish but don't try to change my wishes.
From the U.S. National Library of Medicine;
DNR-Do-not-resuscitate order
A do-not-resuscitate order, or DNR order, is a medical order written by a doctor. It instructs health care providers not to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) if a patient's breathing stops or if the patient's heart stops beating.
A DNR order is created, or set up, before an emergency occurs. A DNR order allows you to choose whether or not you want CPR in an emergency. It is specific about CPR. (((LISTEN TO THIS PART))) It does not have instructions for other treatments, such as pain medicine, other medicines, or nutrition.
The doctor writes the order only after talking about it with the patient (if possible), the proxy, or the patient's family.
Do you understand what this says?
Giving pain medicine has nothing to do with a DNR. No medical person gives Morphine to kill them. It is not moral or legal. It also would not be an efficient way to kill them. Doses of narcotics are counted every shift. It would not be easy to get "enough" out of the locked box to actually kill anybody. If one were inclined, there are many other methods that would be more effective and take less time.
But, you WANT to believe that your dad was killed. No one is going to change your mind about it. So continue believing that. I hope that you NEVER have to be admitted to the hospital so they won't kill you too!!!!!!!!
Your story has changed throughout this thread. As another poster said, you have lost all credibility with your ridiculous claims. And, FYI, I never asked you 25 questions. If you chose to respond to every sentence I wrote, that was your choice.
"For your information: From the U.S. National Library of Medicine; DNR-Do-not-resuscitate order A do-not-resuscitate order, or DNR order, is a medical order written by a doctor. It instructs health care providers not to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) if a patient's breathing stops or if the patient's heart stops beating.
A DNR order is created, or set up, before an emergency occurs. A DNR order allows you to choose whether or not you want CPR in an emergency. It is specific about CPR. (((LISTEN TO THIS PART))) It does not have instructions for other treatments, such as pain medicine, other medicines, or nutrition. The doctor writes the order only after talking about it with the patient (if possible), the proxy, or the patient's family. Do you understand what this says?"
Yet again, you are telling what a DNR is supposed to be, when this thread is about the abuse of DNR. Do you understand what that means? It means using a DNR for something other than what it is supposed to be. Abusing it. Your argument is like saying nobody can shoot you with a shotgun because shotguns are made to kill birds and rabbits.
"Giving pain medicine has nothing to do with a DNR. No medical person gives Morphine to kill them."
My father was never in pain, yet the hospital had on his chart to give him morphine 6 times a day, and they did, even when he was unconscious. Your claim that no medical person gives morphine to kill them is belied by the fact that the cardiologist told me "I guess the hospital needed the bed" and he said it in a matter-of-fact sort of way, as if they do it all the time. Your claim is a falsehood.
"It is not moral or legal."
Your point would only be valid if people didn't do things that are immoral or illegal. In fact, people do immoral and illegal things all the time. If you could only know the things they did and expected me to do at the LASIK place I used to work. People will do anything and everything for a buck. If not, somebody else will.
"It also would not be an efficient way to kill them."
Who said anything about being efficient? This irrelevant point just adds to your gish gallop. My answer is, it's the most efficient way to kill them where they won't get caught. Killing with morphine will always be defended with "we gave him morphine to be compassionate" and talk about death with dignity with the pretense of having the moral high ground. Other more efficient and quicker methods could not.
"Doses of narcotics are counted every shift. It would not be easy to get "enough" out of the locked box to actually kill anybody."
6 times a day is enough, especially if added to the other sedatives and starvation.
"If one were inclined, there are many other methods that would be more effective and take less time."
Total gish gallop argument. You could shoot him, but you'd get caught. There actually are no more efficient or quicker ways for a hospital to empty the bed and get away with it. Name one.
"But, you WANT to believe that your dad was killed."
Why would I want to believe that? My mother died because her hearth stopped beating. My grandmother died the same way. No problem. My father had a dozen tests and they found nothing wrong with him but a-fib, so they started giving him morphine for no reason and starving him. But I repeat, WHY would I want to believe it?
"No one is going to change your mind about it. So continue believing that. I hope that you NEVER have to be admitted to the hospital so they won't kill you too!!!!!!!!"
Nobody is going to change my mind because I know exactly what happened. Your arguments are weak and false, but numerous. You are wrong on every point.
"Your story has changed throughout this thread."
My story had never changed a tiny speck, but saying it did is a nice attempt at an argument, thrown in with all the other false attempts. Name one way where my story ever changed? Name one!
" As another poster said, you have lost all credibility with your ridiculous claims. And, FYI, I never asked you 25 questions. If you chose to respond to every sentence I wrote, that was your choice."
You will never believe me even though what I'm saying is true. Any more evidence I bring will be met with more false argument and claims that I am changing my story. So go on claiming that hospitals don't euthanize the elderly, even though I'm sure you already know they do.
My parent's hospital had copies on file, plus copy of the Power of Attorney, etc. We used the Living Will, some times one has a Medical Directive, either documents give me a guide on what my parents would like the hospital to do in certain situations.
By the way how is the attempted murder trial coming along. You did notify the police of this, right?
I didn't notify the police because he didn't actually die in the hospital. He died in rehab 2 days after being transferred. How can I prove the pneumonia was caused by aspiration during cardiogenic shock caused by the hospital? The hospital would just say whatever they needed to say.
Stop placing conditional value on life.
Imagine this: you've had something traumatic happen to you. You can't speak, you can't feed yourself, you can no longer care for yourself.
The doctors and your family are calling you a "vegetable". You hear them say, your life has no value. "The best thing to do would be to remove your feeding tube and let nature take its course."
The only thing is, you can hear and comprehend everything they say. You just can no longer effectively communicate. You are powerless to advocate for yourself. You have no say. No voice. You are at the mercy of the doctors, who do not care about you as an individual, but rather, feel you are using up precious medical resources that would go to better use on a patient they consider to be "useful" to society as a whole.
They remove your feeding tube to begin the process of death by dehydration. The most painful and agonizing death any living creature could suffer. You are being murdered. Denied the most basic life sustaining elements: food and water! Not because your body can not process food, but because you can not swallow, otherwise, you are a healthy, breathing, living human being! The process of your death by dehydration takes 7 to 14 days.
Sleep well.
Things like this have become a death sentence in many medical settings because of the culture of death mindset you have repeated in your comments.
If natural death is occurring, we can not "allow" it or stop it. We do not have that power.
If death is being "allowed" it is most certainly being facilitated by denying care. Your words give your true beliefs away.”
Your words here state no one should be allowed to die, that allowing the natural progression of death is absolutely and morally wrong, and caregivers that withhold artificial measures in these cases are in fact murderers. “If death is being allowed it means withholding care. Your words give your true beliefs away.” So letting nature take its course but not offering comfort measures whether they be pharmaceutical or otherwise on that person’s deathbed is, according to you, the wrong thing to do? I won’t attempt to even discuss your statement there because IMO you are the one being cruel to deny comfort care. So, the only “care” you recognize is CPR, artificial respiration & intubation, and nothing to provide comfort to alleviate the anxiety or fear that poor person may be experiencing? That is extreme.
“To every thing there is a season (paraphrasing) , a time to live and a time to die”.
Re: to MD- at 92 (your dad’s age) don’t you think that something other than staff intervention could have caused his death? A fib only? Did you have an autopsy done & what were the results? I guarantee his cause of death was not a -fib. With a -fib or any heart there can easily be conduction deficits in the efficiency of the heart muscle as a -fib in itself is a conduction problem. To expect that your father was not affected by natural aging of his body as he had lived 92 years is unrealistic.
And your brother stepped in to inform the staff that your dad had a living will with end of life guidelines, but it was the staff’s fault?
I don’t think it was anyone’s fault your father died except that he was 92 years old - 92 - and his body just could not withstand functioning anymore. It was his time.
He obviously was stable enough to be transferred to a rehab facility where he succumbed to pneumonia. And the pneumonia developed due to the 48 hours he was in ICU with cardiogenic shock? Did they insert a pacemaker when his HR dropped so low?
Was he sent to rehab directly from ICU? If so that would be very unusual and I would wonder why you allowed that to happen. Usually patients go to a step down unit post ICU and observed.
Murder at 92? Come on, really?
You have latched on to what the MD said about “needing the bed”. Doctors often say things in jest or to lighten up the situation or because of pure stupidity and no bedside manner. You are using this statement of his to validate your feelings that he was murdered.
You also by your statements assure that the ICU staff or any staff in that hospital were complicit in overdosing or providing harm to your father. That’s a huge assumption. So, for instance, on change of shift are you saying a nurse asked her incoming colleague to continue the goal of murdering your dad? That is absolutely insane.
And Prolife, don’t dare tell me my words give my “true feelings” away. If allowing someone to die with dignity or pain free reflect my “true feelings” then so be it. You are the one playing God here. I am simply letting nature take it’s course.
Both Prolife & MD are blatantly accusing providers ( RN’s & MD’s) of planning to take a life. Of committing murder. How utterly insulting to me (a RN) and/or my colleagues who regularly work to prolong life and provide comfort.
Curious MD, what was the cause of death from your father’s autopsy? Was he autopsied or did another family member decide to spare your father from being autopsies? Please let me know.
Still with all this discussion I believe everyone has the right to voice their opinions as do I. I have seen physicians cry when their patients die after they have tried to save them. To lump the bunch of us as an uncaring group planning to be Angels of Death when we go to work is just bonkers.
I can see the one about being in your head and classes as a vegetable BUT knowing what is going on and hearing all. It would be an excruciating situation to be in, for the patient and their family's (who are unaware that the patient can hear and understand) As well as having DNR on my notes I will now insist that they let me 'go' if in that position. I do NOT want to be starved. Please let me go in comfort!
I am not antilife or prolife as, in my opinion, it is a case to case situation. If only my brain was alive, then let me go. My quality of life has already gone.
No offence - just my personal view.
"Re: to MD- at 92 (your dad’s age) don’t you think that something other than staff intervention could have caused his death? A fib only?"
He had a-fib only, after 12 hours of testing they found nothing else. And the a-fib went away.
"Did you have an autopsy done & what were the results? I guarantee his cause of death was not a -fib."
I know it wasn't. It was morphine, beta blockers when he had HYPOtension not hyper, sedatives including ambien, and starvation, which led to cardiogenic shock and aspiration, which he recovered from, but 10 days later resulted in pneumonia from the aspiration.
"With a -fib or any heart there can easily be conduction deficits in the efficiency of the heart muscle as a -fib in itself is a conduction problem. To expect that your father was not affected by natural aging of his body as he had lived 92 years is unrealistic."
No answer
"And your brother stepped in to inform the staff that your dad had a living will with end of life guidelines, but it was the staff’s fault?"
End of life guidance when there is no terminal illness? Being 92 is not a terminal illness, and being unconscious from sedatives and morphine and starvation is not grounds to give end of life guidance.
"I don’t think it was anyone’s fault your father died except that he was 92 years old - 92 - and his body just could not withstand functioning anymore. It was his time."
Nonsense. He survived cardiogenic shock which most people age 25 don't. His BP was 39/25 and his heart rate was 10 per minute, and it was iatrogenic, yet he survived and recovered---- this is proof that it was NOT his time.
"He obviously was stable enough to be transferred to a rehab facility where he succumbed to pneumonia. And the pneumonia developed due to the 48 hours he was in ICU with cardiogenic shock?"
He was never in ICU. He was left to die with my brother and sister watching him die like Johnny Cash in Reno. Then I took over from them and he slowly came out of shock when the drugs and morphine wore off. He wasn't in shock for 48 hours. It was only a few hours maybe 6.
"Did they insert a pacemaker when his HR dropped so low?"
No, there were no doctors or nurses in the room, nor were any called. He was left to die in the observation bed, with nobody there but my brother and sister, until I walked in the room and took over.
"Was he sent to rehab directly from ICU?"
He was never in ICU. He recovered on his own, mainly due to me taking over his care from my siblings. After he came out of shock and his blood pressure went back to normal, he was still extremely sick and out of it, and it took a day for his kidney function to come back, another 5 days in the bed before he could pass the swallow test by the speech pathologist, then 2 days of solid food, which he ate like a pig, and then suddenly one day, he was 100% recovered and begging to go back home, calling for a taxi, and refusing the oxygen mask which he obviously didn't need anymore. My father took control of his own medical care and told the doctor so, and the proxy brother ran off to Cape Cod. My sister suggested rehab to get his walking back, as the physical therapists found he could sit in a chair, and stand with a walker, but could not walk, even with a rolling walker. He needed PT in rehab. My father was the one who chose the rehab facility after discussing it with their representative.
"If so that would be very unusual and I would wonder why you allowed that to happen. Usually patients go to a step down unit post ICU and observed.
Murder at 92? Come on, really?"
People live to 100 all the time. Come on really you say? Really? You think people can't be murdered at 92? You need to change the criminal justice system to give people expiration dates, beyond which murder charges don't apply. Obamacare would love to know the age limit for medical care as well, you seem to think 92 is past that.
"You have latched on to what the MD said about “needing the bed”. Doctors often say things in jest or to lighten up the situation or because of pure stupidity and no bedside manner. You are using this statement of his to validate your feelings that he was murdered."
The doctor (cardiologist) was not joking. He thought I was the brother who was the medical proxy. When I asked him whether he thought the Lopressor (beta blocker to lower blood pressure), caused the shock, as my father already suffered from LOW blood pressure, and when I then told him I was a different brother than the one he spoke to on the phone, his face went white, since I was not the brother who told him to euthanize my father. Our voices sound the same over the phone, he thought I was the "kill him now" brother.
"You also by your statements assure that the ICU staff or any staff in that hospital were complicit in overdosing or providing harm to your father. That’s a huge assumption. So, for instance, on change of shift are you saying a nurse asked her incoming colleague to continue the goal of murdering your dad? That is absolutely insane."
No, the new shift didn't know. They were all good and trying to help my father, since I told my brothers and sister to stay out. I never saw the nurse again who was giving the euthanasia drugs, and the cardiologist never came back after that. The hospitalist who came in once a day after June 6 knew nothing about it. This is why my father recovered. That doctor was shocked because he never saw a patient in his life recover from 39/25 and 10, with a core temperature of 90. Especially because he was 92. He said as far as he was concerned, it was an act of God that he recovered, especially since my father never went to ICU. He knew about the DNR though.
"And Prolife, don’t dare tell me my words give my “true feelings” away. If allowing someone to die with dignity or pain free reflect my “true feelings” then so be it. You are the one playing God here. I am simply letting nature take it’s course. Both Prolife & MD are blatantly accusing providers ( RN’s & MD’s) of planning to take a life. Of committing murder. How utterly insulting to me (a RN) and/or my colleagues who regularly work to prolong life and provide comfort. Curious MD, what was the cause of death from your father’s autopsy? Was he autopsied or did another family member decide to spare your father from being autopsies? Please let me know. "
I will scan the death certificate with names removed. "Cardiopulmonary arrest from septis caused by pneumonia caused by cardiogenic shock" is what it says.
Sorry, I thought he was in ICU.
I still think from all my experience that your father had a cardiac conduction deficit or an acute myocardial infarct. From the symptoms described with the drop in heart rate and blood pressure with the subsequent rebound is a clue. When someone has a fib often blood pressure and heart rate are hard to determine if they used one of those automatic BP machines as the machine can’t determine BP due to the atrial fibrillation movement. I would have used a manual old fashioned cuff. I now assume that’s what they used. If he was in ICU and in cardiogenic shock they would have inserted an arterial line and CVP line.
It sounds like this entire episode was mishandled by the health care proxy, thus the hospital was bound to follow his instructions.
In my experience if any patient was diagnosed with cardiogenic shock in any ER, staff would have transferred him up to ICU where he would have had the above lines inserted and treatment started with vasopressors to get his BP up. They would have evaluated him for a pacemaker & inserted one.
There is something missing from this scenario. What was your dad’s status prior to this event and who/why did he go to the ER?
No I don’t need the death certificate.
I am beginning to think your anger is misplaced.
As far as Obamacare, we do not have death panels here in the US. No committee determines who lives and dies....yet. So please, no Obamacare lamentations. I am not a fan of it, but know for a fact that any ER staff - MD or RN - would not simply ignore a patient in cardiogenic shock (which requires treatment and lasts longer than 6 hours, usually). That’s why I think your dad had an acute MI or an acute heart conduction issue, but if no autopsy was done, it’s all conjecture.
that you didn't insist on an autopsy.
I thought you called 911 and had your father transported... Maybe that is causing you to feel guilty and this search for others to blame.
I am sorry you lost your father.
I hope you find peace with this situation and work out your anger. I won’t take your attack personally. Grief is exhibited in many ways.
Maybe direct it to your brother, your dad’s health care proxy. There are pieces to this story we’ll never know. I will bet your brother did not authorize an autopsy.
Your father is at peace now. Again, I hope you find peace as well. Unfortunately noone lives forever. God wanted him and it was his time.
God Bless.
Over and over you keep saying that it's "only" atrial fib.
Here's what the Mayo Clinic has to say;
"Atrial fibrillation is an irregular and often rapid heart rate that can increase your risk of stroke, heart failure and other heart-related complications. ... Although atrial fibrillation itself usually isn't life-threatening, it is a serious medical condition that sometimes requires emergency treatment."
Dec 29, 2017 Mayo Clinic
So don't say "only" as if there are NO consequences. He COULD have died from complications of atrial fib.
Quit burying you head in the sand. You are no cardiologist (neither am I) but whoever wrote the above at the Mayo clinic was.
What caused that? Pure and simple, old age. Dad was in his 90's. In his case the pipe that goes down to the stomach starts to narrow down over all those decades. Dad knew that he had lived years passed his expiration date.
Before you know it, you will find yourself in your own age decline mode. We age. Stuff happens. Now if people lived to be 120, then one would question why someone passed at 92.
I am extremely sad about that.
Nobody on this site can do anything at all about that. You mentioned filing charges. Why don't you do that? At least you would be talking to someone who could do something.
For the sake of moving forward I will also stipulate that the DNR was abused. I doubt than anyone on this forum approves of abusing DNR orders. So we are all with you on that point.
This thread started out as a discussion of whether the DNR should be legal at all. Whether it could be used for good or evil.
Are you trying to convince us that the document itself should be banned? Or that abuse of the document should be punished? If the latter, go file your charges. I'd like to hear how this all comes up,