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Assisted Dying
Pleased to say that MP (Vikki Slade, Liberal) voted in favour of the bill, as she'd promised when I wrote to her about it.
(Our previous MP, Conservative, - but not necessarily representative of the rest of the party - did not always vote to match what his letters implied.)
My heath is fine at present (expect when I get sciatica or break something), but I'm terrified of dementia (the bill doesn't cover that, but hopefully it may one day extend to it, such that if wishes are expressed in a proper power of Attorney while a person is still of sound mind).
I wrote my POA several years ago, and made my wishes clear. If I ever can't recognise my family, then that person is no longer a person I wish to be. And I certainly don't want my family to live with that kind of pain or to spend their time caring (or paying for care for) someone who can't appreciate it.
I want my money to go to my grandchildren and not on end of life care for me.
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I'm totally against assisted suicide: (a) for myself, it's against my religion, and (b) for others, I think the risk of it being abused and people being pressured is too great (see above for example of where a daughter was pressured to have her father "assisted to die").
I agree with you on "the removal of artificially extending life". I don't want any heroic measures performed on me. Heck, if I had a terminal condition and was given six months to live, or given twelve months to live if I had lots of invasive treatments, I'm not sure I'd want to bother with the treatments.
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Glad we agree on one aspect :) (I knew someone who turned down chemo on the grounds that she'd rather enjoy what was left of her life. She'd had chemo before and knew just how bad it was)
Yes, pressure can be applied, though I believe the UK law would make that difficult. Yet your friend was able to hold her own and have her wishes followed. Strong belief can achieve that.
Pressure, sadly, can go both ways.
When my mother was dying (in a month of pain and delirium that was horrifying to see), my dad was actively researching anything that might give her a few days extra life and pressuring the hospital into doing it.
I do not believe that would have been her desire (we'd discussed the subject a year before when she'd nearly died), but I think my Dad saw it - like he did most things - as a puzzle to be solved and a fight that was somehow winnable.
For himself, fighting for every possible moment of life, was a natural choice. He would never have asked for assisted dying, no matter what was killing him.
For my mother... He should not have fought to give her MORE days of horror. (When I saw her, she didn't recognise us, but was babbling away and batting at things that weren't there. Yet there was still a trace of her remaining. When I mentioned the name of my dead sister, I saw a tear form in her eye. She was aware to some small degree, which made it so much worse.)
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Yes, dementia can be horrifying. My Aunt Elizabeth had what IIRC is called "sundown syndrome" where they are fine most of the time, and then there comes a point in the day where they lose time and forget what is going on. Yes, that is very mild compared to what you are describing, but it was utterly chilling to me to visit her and start talking, and then a minute later she would repeat the exact same phrase in the exact same intonation (shudder). I couldn't bear visiting her after that; I wanted to remember her from when she was whole, not this shadow.
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I know exactly what you mean about wanting to remember the person someone really was.
Exact repetition - that's so scary.
I hope that if I am ever like that, that my grandchildren do not visit. And that no one pressures them into visiting, in the belief that I would want it...
I am forever grateful that my beloved mother-in-law died quickly (a week) in hospital, and was coherent and intelligent to the last.
She was very practical, asked us to pay the upholsterer for the fabric he'd bought to cover a chair she would now never use.
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(hugs)
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