ARTICLE IN THE CINCINNATI POST...

[Sluggo]

There was an article in last night's paper about a family in the Cincinnati area whose son is in a vegetative state & has been at Drake Hospital for, I think, seventeen years. His parents can't bring themselves to have his feeding tube removed & he is in much worse condition than Terri.
He, apparently has no living will & the parents did not say if he had ever expressed his wishes. HE was in a motorcycle accident, I think.

I sympathize with his parents. I do not know if I could have a feeding tube removed from a child of mine either. It's different if the kid has a living will or is married.

This is one more case where, I BELIEVE, I would have to walk in the parents' shoes for a time before I could judge them.

[Blast from the Past]

It's such an emotionally complex issue, snap easy answers are not worth much IMHO. I feel for the loved ones who want to keep a relative/spouse/child or whomever alive, but I also would not want to live like that myself. Very gray area isn't it? Fortunately before my mom slipped into a coma before she died she had always said, more times than anyone in the family could even keep count, that she would never want to be kept alive by a machine or artificial means. There was no question about it within the family. She was in a coma for 2 weeks before she died. But before she died she was in so much pain she begged her doctor to just give her a shot or pill to end it all. This was a person who desperately wanted to live and did not believe "suicide" was morally acceptable. But there does come a point where one should have a choice I think of continued living, or escape through death. The million dollar question is: In what circumstances? When is it "OK" to expedite the dying process? Bigger questions perhaps than any of us can answer...

<font color="#FFFFAA" size="1">[ March 31, 2005 11:24 AM: Message edited by: G L ]</font>

[cincygreg]

here's that article.

You are most likely right about it being easier to say that you would remove it when you have never had to make that decision, but I would hope that no-one would ever let me live like that for that many years.

Feeding Tube Case In Cincy

[Sluggo]

That is why living wills were created.
My husband & I each have one & at least one of my kids & her husband have one & I intend to talk to my other kids about getting one drawn up. I think EVERYONE should have one.

[gae]

Originally posted by Sluggo:
That is why living wills were created.
My husband & I each have one & at least one of my kids & her husband have one & I intend to talk to my other kids about getting one drawn up. I think EVERYONE should have one.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Sometime in the past couple of weeks I heard a good bit of advice from an attorney on living wills and medical POAs: DO NOT KEEP THEM IN A SAFE DEPOSIT BOX OR TUCKED AWAY IN A DRAWER WITH OTHER PAPERS. Too often, people's wishes are overlooked because no one can find the paperwork.