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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Sorry you are going through this.  Do you mean it is clear that your aunt will not eat or drink on her own again?[/quote]

Yes she has failed a swallow test and is not permitted liquids or food.[/quote]

Let me get this straight:  she failed a swallow test, so to prevent aspiration they want her to consume nothing by mouth, but it’s OK to starve/dehydrate her to death as long as they pump her full of narcotics.

That’s not “death with dignity.”  It’s active killing.

And the idea that a person near the end of life should not get treatment for an infection (which has a palliative effect in addition to being potentially curative) borders on sadistic.

Hospice used to be a good idea when it was in the nature of a social movement. Now it’s a business and a pretty macabre one at that. [/quote]

Part of me wants to just say F U because I’ve worked in hospice for the last 7 years and I cared for my grandmother and a best friend at end of life too and you are basically calling me a sadist who tortured my beloved relatives, friends and clients.

But I recognize that you are just deeply ignorant. If you happen to be blessed with a very long life, the day will come when you stop taking nutrition which is a normal aspect of life for humans (and a great many other species) at end of life. And you will learn by your own experience that when your body is ancient and worn out, it doesn’t hurt to not eat or drink.

You might have the common sense now to know that with fasting being a lifestyle craze and a religious practice for centuries, there is voluminous evidence that fasting doesn’t involve pain, but only minor discomfort which quickly passes. That’s in healthy people. In dying people there is no pain, and no hunger pangs resulting from the cessation of consumption of food and water.

Attacking hospice caregivers is about the lowest of the low for online acting out. Whatever is behind it, I hope you get the help you need.

[/quote]

There seems to be a reading comprehension problem here. The OP never indicated that the person she cares about decided to stop eating and drinking, lost interest in doing so because of physical and mental deterioration, or slipped into more or less an unconscious state. This is not about “fasting,” and it’s not about the natural process of unhurried death.

OP indicated that the patient in question was set to be deprived of nutrition and hydration she was interested enough in to participate in a (failed) swallow test. That’s something entirely different.

And while the people you’ve cared for may not have seemed to be in pain, I’ve seen enough people gasping for their last breath, burning with fever, and trying to lick their cracked lips to know that your experience is not universal.

You seem incredibly sensitive to the possibility that some of the things you’ve been told or taught were not the best that could have been done. I commend your clear desire to do what’s right, but when having your practices questioned produces such an intense negative reaction it seems awfully defensive.

[/quote]

My mom is dying now.  Aren't the gasping and dry mouth par for the course, at least for a cancer death?[/quote]

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