Big thanks to you, my Schiavo-esque in-laws, for deciding to keep my severely brain-damaged mother-in-law alive for four years now. Who wouldn’t want to have a feeding tube, trach, catheter, and two nurses on them at all times? I mean, we all know how extremely private she was. She never let me see her in shorts, because she didn’t like her legs. Of course she’d want strangers changing her diapers. Adding to the fun: her inability to talk, write, or move in any meaningful way, and you changing her living will to reflect her “new desires.” How did she communicate these desires, by the way? Hmmm. She can’t talk or sign or write. You don’t let a severely brain-damaged person make these decisions; that’s why in her original living will she asked to only be kept alive if it were reasonable to think that she could recover or when a doctor said that there’s hope. Did you totally forget that her CATHOLIC doctor came to your house and told you that he could no longer work the case because it was morally unethical to keep her alive? That was two years ago. But you’re right, her life is TOTALLY worth living. She’s been in the hospital receiving dialysis for six months now, because her fucking body is trying to SHUT DOWN AND DIE. Oh, and the extremely painful bedsores and shingles that she’s been experiencing? Totally RAD!
Death is not that scary. Living like she has for the last four years—that’s everyone’s worst nightmare. 
Severely brain-damaged relatives are a total bummer.
I’m surprised the Republicans weren’t all over this.
Heartbreaking.
This was right on…hopefully the nimrods see themselves and evaluate their selfish reasons for making this poor woman suffer. After working in a long term care setting for 13 years, I can assure you that most would not to live like a vegetable….
It’s awful that her original wishes were not respected because her close family members would rather she keep living in a condition she would have despised.
Having said that, in my own personal case, I’m all for drastic measures to keep me alive no matter how unresponsive I am or dim my prognosis, and my aging parents feel the same way should something similar ever happen to them.
How is it even legal for her living will to be changed without her consent???
Who’s paying for this?
Nothing good about that situation. A good I,anonymous though.
damn, this is so sad. also, it’s literally my worst nightmare.
Which is why my mother, who works at a hospital, has told me point blank that if I am brain dead or completely unresponsive, then she will be pulling the plug. No one wants to “live” like that. Corpses can stay animated for decades with constant medical intervention, that doesn’t mean they still aren’t corpses. Say your goodbyes and bury the dead.
@9. “Irregardless” is not a real word.
ir·re·gard·less (ĭr’ĭ-gärd’lĭs)
adv. Nonstandard
Regardless.
[Probably blend of irrespective and regardless.]
Usage Note: Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so.
Dear Pope Ratzinger:
When you were a Hitler Youth, did you dream of someday being the spiritual leader of people who would subject a helpless coma victim to prolonged medical torture? If so, congratulations, and see you soon!
There’s a great form called a POLST form “Physician’s Order for Life Sustaining Treatment” the idea is that you and your Physician sign it and it becomes a “Doctor’s Order” so your stupid family members can’t change your mind for you when you are incapacitated….I highly recommend all people of all ages have one filled out.
Oh, Darling, I am so sorry for both you and your MiL… It’s horrible to have to deal with watching the slow wasting and such needless loss of dignity and even worse when you know that the wishes of the person in question were/are that this not be allowed….you have my greatest sympathy and I hope that she slips away soon so that she can be free of this and so that everyone can begin to heal.
I assume that your own wishes are in language that cannot be easily overridden.
Condolences to I, Anon’s spouse too. That’s fucking brutal.
I’m so sorry you are having to witness this suffering without having any power to change the situation. I can only imagine that your in-laws are also suffering and that suffering is blinding them to the truth of the situation. I hope that all of you will be relieved soon and find healing in the ending.
My sincere condolences.
I heard a story second or third hand of a rabbi in a coma: the rabbinical council had durable power of attorney, and overrode his living will. They concluded that the proper think to do would be to not give him any extra treatment to keep him alive, but not take away any that the hospital was already giving him. As he happened to be receiving fluids but not food at the time, he is now going to slowly starve to death. I’ve heard more fucked-up interpretations of God’s will, but this one is pretty high up there.
Okay, I kind of want to hit that family. I have worked in the long term care field for almost 10 yrs now and that is just not right. But sadly you see it all too often. I am 28y/o have a living will and my mother, a 30+yr RN, knows my wishes. And thank you #12. I know I can’t spell, but that word drives me crazy.
@12.
Congratulations on completely missing the point. REGARDLESS of whether Anonymous reads the comments posted to his/her quandary, I find it highly suspect that s/he would give a flying rat’s ass about your obviously superior understanding of the English language. Go fuck yourself.
To Anonymous, I am truly sorry.
@12 – did @9 imply in any way that that particular comment to an anonymous blog entry should be considered to be formal English? Why aren’t you critiquing the original post for using such words as “rad” and “hmm”.
People like you give the rest of us grammar nazis a bad name, although most of us actually do know the difference between formal and informal/colloquial speech and prose.
Steven Weissman,
Your cartoon is simply brilliant; simple, conclusive, perfect.
Thank you.
I’m so sorry to hear about this. It’s so sad. I have nothing more to add except comments 9 and 15 contain some good advice.
The more I hear about these sorts of things, the more I think I REALLY need to write a will, and SOON.
By the way, I’m 21. I’m just aware of the fact that death can happen whenever, and I really shouldn’t leave my family in a lurch.
I bet anonymous beat the shit out of his mother-in-law causing her condition. Now he wants to pull the plug to get rid of the evidence.
you can always do a like weekend a burneys thing i mean to lighten the mood.
To I, Anonymous. I’m so glad you wrote in to get that off your chest. That is very heavy. I hope she finds peace and rest soon.
I’ve been there and it sucks. My mother was the one in a terminal coma (diagnosed as brain dead) and her wishes and those of our entire family were disreguarded by some stupid intern who decided to put her on a resperator WITHOUT permission. That was back in the early ’80s, before Karen Ann Quinlen and living wills and to have taken her off the damn resperator would have resulted in murder charges for someone.
So my mother, who had a terrible fear of being left paralysed and uncommunicative, was forced to live for a torturous 6 months.
Who paid for it? Well, we all did. Want to know why asprin costs $4 a tablet when you are in the hospital? My mom ran up a million dollars in medicals bill which we refused to pay. But worst of all was the waste of resources. At the time, there were a total of *four* nuero-intensive care beds in the state – and my mother’s corpse occupied one of them for 2 weeks after all hope was gone. Was anyone told ‘sorry, Mr. Smith, but we have to postpone the surgury for your brain cancer because we don’t have a bed for you’ during that time?
I could rant on and on about this, because it makes me so angry. Why are people so afraid of death? It’s perfectly natural and happens to everyone. I don’t want to die, but I’d rather be dead than stuck in a coma.
Amen. As an RN that very frequently deals with just this dilemma, I’m right there with you. I’m the nurse that has to take care of those painful shingles & bed sores, get to nag the doctor to sign a Do Not Resuscitate Order either per pt wishes or medical futility. If that’s what they want I will do my best to keep their body & whatever is left of their mind alive & as comfortable as possible, but when it’s not clear what they wanted & it’s futile anyway it definitely makes my job suck.
If you don’t want to be the mother-in-law you need to create an Advance Directive, but since thess can be unclear in some situations you should designate ONE person as the Power of Attorney for Healthcare & make sure that person knows specifically what quality of life you you find acceptable. A Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST) previously mentioned is more a document that travels with you from a Skilled Nursing Facility to the hospital when you’re sick & is similar to an advance directive, but is also fairly basic & usually created after the patient is already incapacitated.
& for the record, if it’s me in the hospital bed just tell the doctor/intern/resident/nurse/whoever that I want comfort measures only.
@19 But that is, precisely, the stance of Jewish medical ethics in end-of-life issues – that it’s acceptable to withhold future treatment in a case where it’s clear the person’s body is trying to depart this world, even though it would be unethical to actively kill them (read: inject deadly drugs, etc.). Isn’t the point of this post that sometimes endless interventions are more horrific than just letting go? As to the rabbi in a coma starving to death – do we have evidence that he feels pain? Or could this be a peaceful way for him to depart this world?
If you’re interested in the religious ethical structure that produced such a decision, Elliot Dorff is a good source.
Usually commenters rip the I, Anon to shreds. I think it’s interesting that nearly all the responses are sympathetic and supportive.
This should be required reading for all humans.
Unfortunately a respectable death is a dignity that we can only offer our pets, not our relatives at this time. Did the death with dignity law get passed yet?
Wow. That really sucks.
Anon, condolences to your unfortunate mother-in-law having to senselessly suffer.
Yeah–I’m with @34—didn’t I-1000, the Death With Dignity law get passed?