People are living too long.. I hope to die age 82-85
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Anonymous
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No one is living too long.
People are dying too long. |
Anonymous
I spent the last two years being a respite caregiver to a mid 90s woman who was being cared for in her elderly (70ish) daughter's home. Daughter was a nurse by profession so very well skilled for the tasks required. They BOTH wished for her death, and talked about it fairly frequently. It was not an abusive situation at all. She was adored by her whole family including two generations of grandkids she'd helped raised before becoming infirm. They grieved her death but also celebrated it, because she spoke every single day of the last 5+ years of her life about her desperate wish that God would take her. I've been doing eldercare for nearly a decade now, much of it hospice status and many hospice clients who lingered for years - doctors can say your condition might kill you in six months, but that means nothing to mother nature. Life gets very difficult when you are barely mobile, stuck in chairs and beds and needing somebody else to wipe your anus while having lost most of the bodily function that would allow you to participate in any of the life activities you used to love. We should have MAID in the USA, everywhere. |
Anonymous
I am curious, several posters have mentioned elderly people stopping their meds. It does seem unlikely that most people living that long are doing so without statins, etc. Was that woman on medications? Does going off them late in life hasten death? Is the option to just never start taking them and late nature take its course? Some of us were meant to live long lives of quality, while others not. I am in my mid-50s and started taking BP meds a couple of years ago and sometimes I wonder if I should just not and let my end come when it's meant to. I do not want to get to an age and condition that makes my kids dread being around me, the same way I feel about my mother now. She was a loving mother who I adored when I was a child. But my entire adult life has felt like I am dealing with a child and I cannot stand it. I don't want my kids to feel that way about me. |
Anonymous
You can go to Vermont now if you're terminal - they've opened their MAID to nonresidents. But if you want to control the end in the absence of a terminal illness you'd need to go to Switzerland. Interesting article on the subject of MAID: https://www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2022/10/22/a-designed-death--where--when-the-world-allows-it/?sh=2af9a1d67b3d |
Anonymous
| I have watched my grandmother and now my grandmother decline with dementia. In my grandmother's case, her body just kept on going until 99. She couldn't speak anymore, needed to be cued to eat, and because of a hip injury earlier in her dementia journey (she failed to do the rehab), was confined to a wheelchair. I see my mother now, still aware, but unable to do almost any task independently now. It will not work to take her to Switzerland, because she is no longer competent, and her body is functioning quite fine (years of ballet classes have contributed to incredible balance and good strength) with zero medication. Because I do not want this, I feel that I would end my life before I got to this stage. Unfortunately, with dementia, you are either too early or too late. To be competent enough to carry out your demise, it will probably feel too early. If you wait until your quality of life significantly declines, you will be too late to carry out the task, and it is unreasonable, unethical and illegal to ask anyone else to do it. Therefore, I am bracing myself for the too early side of things. Fortunately, both mother and grandmother have known that their mental capacity was declining, so if I take after them, I will know I have started my decline. I have researched the how, and hope that I still have a few good decades left. |
Anonymous
| My grandmother and her siblings would sit around and talk about how they "almost got out" that one time with a heart attack or cancer. They were all so fed up by the end. Such amazing black comedy. No one but me thought it was funny. My sister was horrified. |
Anonymous
I have had patients who stopped taking their meds, but usually only right near the end. In a person mid-90s, stopping a regimen of meds will likely have a greater effect than if you eschewed meds in your mid-50s - in that case you'll just allow damage to accrue to your organs, and raising your risk of a heart attack or stroke in the near term when you are still relatively healthy in other ways. My most recent patient had long term CHF and was on several meds to manage it - she stopped taking them about a month before she died but her body was remarkably resilient. She stopped eating and then eventually refused water as well and that's when her body finally starting letting go. It was still a slow agonizing process - the body desperately clings to life at the cellular level, regardless of what the brain wants. |
Anonymous
Sounds like a terrific family - except maybe the uptight sister. |
Anonymous
+1 And their husbands pensions and benefits, some outstanding (and better benefits than those who worked full time, all their lives) even if the wife hardly worked. |
Anonymous
I have read that article and also heard Dr. Zeke talk about it on a podcast once. Having worked in eldercare/hospice care the last decade, I feel strongly as he does. When I read an article this weekend about the actor Tom Wilkinson 'dying suddenly' at home with family age 75, I thought of the Dr. Zeke article. I'm assuming Wilkinson died of a heart attack or massive stroke. The downside of such a death is that it is sudden and there is no time for long goodbyes. But if you are wise enough to tell those you love that you love them along the way, it isn't a terrible way to go. It sure beats years of infirmity, desperately wishing for the sweet release of death. |
Anonymous
This. I definitely want the option of MAID and I want to put it in my will. They should allow you decades in advance to state if you move from mild to moderate dementia you want to have death with dignity and put exactly how you define moderate. That way it is known you made the decision of sound mind and there should be no guilt for adult children following wishes. I have a parent who even if it was available would never consider it and that is fine. She has always had an addiction to anger/drama/verbal abuse/victimhood and now her brain lets her engage with abandon. She gets a sinister smile sometimes when she behaves terribly and she seems to enjoy complaining about her ailments and then berating even total strangers if they don't humor and comfort an old lady. I have no doubt if she gets to the point of losing all independence we will have a revolving door of caregivers unwilling to deal with the abuse unless she is heavily medicated. |
Anonymous
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My father, a lifelong alcoholic, was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia (AKA “what Bruce Willis has”) at age 75. He died an agonizingly slow death culminating in being “locked in” - he was completely unable to communicate verbally (could not utter one sound) yet was fully conscious and immobile.
He lived/survived for nearly four years in a nursing home. My mother insisted that he be fully resuscitated and so one year in, he “coded” and was “brought back” to an even more diminished state. He continued to receive BP meds and I think a diuretic (he had high BP for decades). So he lingered on a in a progressively more vegetative state; it wasn’t until he began refusing food that I got my mother to bring in hospice. Hospice advised a DNR needs to be in place and began palliative care in lieu of BP meds. My dad died 6 months later, in his sleep. |
Anonymous
Good point! I was just venting honestly and understand that I have the genes to live a long time and doing so incapacitated for years at the end is my greatest fear. Maybe I should start smoking. 
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Anonymous
You jest, but my grandfather started smoking again in his 70s after quitting years before. |
Anonymous
Sorry for your loss. I had 2 close friends who were healthy die unexpectedly in their early 20s. Obviously no one knows how long they have. I’m just saying that the PP saying boomers retire at 65 and live another 25 years is predicting the future since the oldest boomers would only be 12 years beyond retirement at this point if they’re still living. |