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REPREHENSIBLE FEAR MONGERS, GULLIBLE AMERICANS
08/07/2009
My parents both died in June, as I have already written about here.
They had each created a living will, stating what their preferences were for medical care should they reach a point in which life was unsustainable without extraordinary measures. They also gave me medical power of attorney, should the living will not be on file at a hospital where they might find themselves or be unable to verbally express their wishes. Because I read their living wills, I have known since they first became ill what their wishes were, and I honored them at the end.
Specifically, my father had difficulty chewing and swallowing in his final months. He knew this would happen and he and my mother had discussed what they wanted to do once that time arrived. He could have had a feeding tube inserted, but he rejected that procedure. It might have extended his life by a few months, but he did not want the discomfort or the complications that could arise, and so no feeding tube was used.
My mother, who had leukemia, ended up in the hospital with breathing difficulties a few days before she died. She had insisted on many occasions that she did not want any extraordinary measures and that she wanted to be allowed to die in peace when the time came. In the emergency room, the doctors discovered that she had a mass and fluid in her lungs from the leukemia, her blood count was extremely low, and she had a urinary tract infection. Those were the things they found, but what they didn't know was that she had been in severe pain in her abdomen and legs for days, probably also from the leukemia.
Without telling me, they were preparing to drain the fluid from her lungs, give her a transfusion and administer IV antibiotics when the ER doctor told me I had a phone call. It was from my mother's oncologist, telling me what the ER was planning to do and asking me if that was what I and my mother wanted. He told me it might extend her life a few days but that ultimately the leukemia was killing her and he reminded me it had been her wish to be allowed to die in peace, at her home. Of course, I agreed and we took my mother home in an ambulance, kept her on oxygen and morphine and she died in less than 24 hours, just four days after my father's death.
My parents' preparing a living will was one of the best things they did, not only for themselves, but for me. I was not left in the position of making decisions regarding their care without knowing their wishes. I knew exactly what they wanted and that made me stronger for them, and able to communicate with the doctors without guilt.
This was not "euthanasia," as some ignorant Republicans might assert. No one killed either of my parents. They bravely allowed the diseases that ravaged their bodies to run their courses, and once there were no more viable treatments to keep them alive with dignity and some quality of life, they decided to accept the inevitable. Even theologians do not insist people fight for life with the most expensive and painful treatments imaginable when all it might gain them is a few hours or days. And if religious people believe in an afterlife, why is a natural death so terrible anyway?
Yet, what is going on in town hall meetings and on the airways is a tactic meant to kill health care, a tactic that uses a common sense provision in a version of the bill that would enable any interested person to create a living will, and twists it to accuse Obama and the Democrats of wanting to kill seniors. A living will, it should be emphasized, only states your wishes. If those wishes are to have every possible extraordinary measure, including hours of CPR, performed when one is dying, then that is what one includes in the living will. If one rejects drastic and usually futile measures, then that is what is included. A living will doesn't give anyone permission to kill you. A living will only says "please respect my wishes when I am helpless and ill and dying. Please allow me some dignity and don't make me suffer unnecessarily."
I'm not sure why ordinary citizens are so susceptible to fear mongering like this on the part of Republicans, but some apparently are. It's nothing new, actually. 9/11 unleashed not just a fear of terrorists, but a fear of Muslims who were American citizens and a fear of anyone who had dark skin and spoke with an accent. An anti-immigration fervor has always infected this nation. First it targeted Italians and Irish, now it attacks Latinos. The recent antics of Republican senators in Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearing were a vivid display of that. Since Abraham Lincoln freed African slaves, a segment of white Americans has been terrified of black people having any power, and some have gone insane since the nation elected its first black president in a free and fair democratic election where the majority rules. Hence, they are quick to assign evil motives to him regardless of what he does.
And now we have some Republican congressmen and congresswomen and conservative talk show nuts peddling the idea that Obama's health reform plan will ration care so that the elderly will be euthanized. Some are dredging up the old "Nazi" meme and stirring up the public with accusations that Obama has provisions in a bill that will kill old people. Sarah Palin, who long ago proved her intellectual inferiority, once again dragged her family into the public arena (even as she tells the media to leave them alone) and took this one step further by including the mentally retarded in Obama's supposed list of targeted citizens. She wrote this on Facebook: "The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."
The reality of course, is that no plan introduced in Congress has any such provision (overt or covert) for a "death panel" or a judgment of one's "level of productivity in society" as a pre-qualification for access to health care. These accusations are simply absurd. Sarah Palin made them up in her tiny little brain.
The reality is that there is a provision, inserted in the bill by a Republican, that helps seniors sit down with their doctors and create a living will, like my parents did, which would put in writing their preferences regarding end of life health care. Isn't this what Republicans keep screaming about, that they want to make their own decisions, with their doctors, about their health care? Do they really want an ER doctor to ram a tube down their throat or into their lungs, puncture them with needles and drugs and perform painful procedures when there is no hope?
We have lost perspective on life and death in this country. We think we are entitled to extraordinary care forever because we seem to think we can live forever. We can't. We never could and we never will. As my father used to say "There isn't one of us who is going to get out of this life alive." And as my mother said "What's going to be is going to be." They both had a realistic perspective on their own mortality, and they died with courage and dignity. We could all learn from them. We could all summon up a little courage and stop falling for the fear mongering of a group of commentators who want ratings, politicians who want to be re-elected, and insurance companies who want more money.
A living will is a beautiful thing. It allows you to decide on what happens at the end of your life before you are unconscious and unable to speak. And it spares your children having to guess at what your wishes might be. It instructs doctors to do everything possible to save your life even for hours or minutes, if that is what you want. Or if you don't want that, it allows your family members to hold your hand, kiss you, and stay with you until you pass to the next life, secure that your wishes were honored, and you did not suffer unnecessarily.
How dare the fear mongers distort such a valuable and beautiful thing just to score political points, get ratings with gullible people, or kill health care reform so they can continue to reap huge profits!
And shame on any American who stupidly falls for such a reprehensible strategy.
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