About to "pull the plug" medically speaking, but it's not that simple

[buckpasser]

I hope it doesn’t offend you @oldfella1962 but I’ll be praying as well.

I was tasked with making a similar decision for my grandfather. I likely made the wrong decision and opted to have the doctors try and battle his ailments one last time. In the end my decision likely cost him some pain and discomfort and I have to live with that. I based my decision on the fact that he ALWAYS fought hard for his health and I felt that he would have wanted to keep trying if he had a voice in that moment. Maybe I was wrong? I think having to live with his death possibly occurring sooner than necessary if I had decided to let him go might have been easier on him but much harder on me. It was no fun and still isn’t several years later. I can’t imagine what all this would be like without faith. There’s no shame in reconsidering your position on the Creator if you get to that point. Just a suggestion. I hope all goes well!

 

[georgia_home]

I Can only offer a prayer for you and your family.

your path is difficult. I pray the lord gives you all strength.

be at peace.

 

[Mexican Squealer]

Prayers for you and your family. Has to be hard not having “faith” at times like this. I honestly couldn’t imagine it.

 

[basstrkr]

I can only speak for my own county and state but a "Power of Attorney was a must have to fulfill my mothers wishes as she declined in mental and physical health.

 

[naildrvr]

Oldfella 1962, I respect your right to believe the way that you choose. However, I would like to encourage you to find yourself a Bible and read the following verses and examine your heart.
Romans 3:23, 6:23, 5:8, 10:9, 10:13
John 3:16-17

Psalms 91
I pray that this will encourage you to also read, believe, receive, and SPEAK LIFE over your wife.

I believe that your wife can receive FULL healing through Jesus Christ!!!

Respectfully, Naildrvr

 

[Lukikus2]

Hate to hear it. Make decisions from your heart as she would you. Keep family out of your head. I lost my love almost 2 years ago. If I had listened to family it would have been six. You having time to stay with her helps tremendously. #1 She knows you are there. #2 She will get better care from the nurses because you are there. Best wishes.

 

[Core Lokt]

Oldfella 1962, I respect your right to believe the way that you choose. However, I would like to encourage you to find yourself a Bible and read the following verses and examine your heart.
Romans 3:23, 6:23, 5:8, 10:9, 10:13
John 3:16-17

Psalms 91
I pray that this will encourage you to also read, believe, receive, and SPEAK LIFE over your wife.

I believe that your wife can receive FULL healing through Jesus Christ!!!

Respectfully, Naildrvr

I’ve been trying to think of things to say to him but you did a great job brother.

10-9 is the one!

Just give it a consideration oldfella. God Bless man.

 

[oldfella1962]

I hope it doesn’t offend you @oldfella1962 but I’ll be praying as well.

I was tasked with making a similar decision for my grandfather. I likely made the wrong decision and opted to have the doctors try and battle his ailments one last time. In the end my decision likely cost him some pain and discomfort and I have to live with that. I based my decision on the fact that he ALWAYS fought hard for his health and I felt that he would have wanted to keep trying if he had a voice in that moment. Maybe I was wrong? I think having to live with his death possibly occurring sooner than necessary if I had decided to let him go might have been easier on him but much harder on me. It was no fun and still isn’t several years later. I can’t imagine what all this would be like without faith. There’s no shame in reconsidering your position on the Creator if you get to that point. Just a suggestion. I hope all goes well!

No, I'm not offended - thanks for your concern. Yes my wife will face a long road ahead. And statistically she probably won't live too many years after all her work. But she does not have a "terminal condition" and it's not like there is no way that will she ever get better - we can only speculate about that. But if I don't even give her a chance to keep living, I will always be second guessing my decision. I will always wonder "what if"? My kids are worried about the toll it will take on me mentally & physically by myself because all the rest of her family is dead or living thousands of miles away. But I think that the toll it would take on me if I don't do all I can for her would be much worse. And realistically at this point I am literally without excuses: I live in a city that is saturated with great medical facilities - and all anticipated medical treatment is at most 30 minutes away. I have great medical insurance that is dirt cheap. I'm already retired, so getting off work to care for her is a moot point.
So as long as I stay "of sound mind & body" and outlive her - which is statistically extremely likely - my spending all my time caring for her beats mourning her death! It will probably boil down to her own motivation to keep on living.

Regardless, I can't do any more about it until Tuesday when the hospital surgery staff are back on the job, and they perform the tracheostomy.

 

[Mike 65]

I’ve been trying to think of things to say to him but you did a great job brother.

10-9 is the one!

Just give it a consideration oldfella. God Bless man.

He did hit the Nail on the Head didn’t he!

Please do consider it.

 

[Core Lokt]

Oldfella. I feel like I have to say this. Take it as you will. I believe there is a God and a heaven and ****. Some do not. Think about it like this if there is not a heaven or God I have wasted my time in believing. If there is you are in trouble brother. God Bless and I pray you will read the scriptures provided.

Still praying for your family, wife and you.

 

[basstrkr]

"What a friend I have in Jesus"

 

[oldfella1962]

Oldfella. I feel like I have to say this. Take it as you will. I believe there is a God and a heaven and ****. Some do not. Think about it like this if there is not a heaven or God I have wasted my time in believing. If there is you are in trouble brother. God Bless and I pray you will read the scriptures provided.

Still praying for your family, wife and you.

No offense, but many "believers" haven't considered a third option to "Pascal's wager" - what if they are worshipping the wrong god?
Bottom line there is no evidence for the thousands of different gods worshipped on this planet - so what are the odds that any specific god
exists? If there is such a thing as "less than zero" odds, this would be a good example. It's like watching the lottery results when you never even bought a ticket. But enough about this - the rest belongs in the AA&A forum, in which I will post shortly. But regardless, thanks for your concern for my situation.

 

[jdgator]

Hang in there, sir. I know this is a very difficult time.

 

[oldfella1962]

Hang in there, sir. I know this is a very difficult time.

The only person it is not difficult for is my wife - since she is unconscious of course. Hopefully she will be responsive soon.

 

[oldfella1962]

Update - sort of Depending on which doctor is on shift, this is the general gist of what they are saying (maybe): My wife's latest CT scan is showing some bleeding in her brain. Also she has blood in her stools, and bleeds when they give her insulin shots. They will give her another CT scan tomorrow (48 hours after the CT scan that showed the bleeding) and if the brain bleeding has gotten worse, they will transfer her to another hospital with brain/neurosurgery to evaluate/fix? her brain and see how much permanent brain damage she is undergoing. The bleeding thing just started a few days ago - she didn't have it at first. If she survives this, she gets transferred back to her current hospital for the tracheostomy breathing/feeding tube attachment process. The problem is, she has been unconscious for a couple of weeks straight. Obviously if she is unable to regain consciousness, she will never get to the "rehabilitation therapy" that will - in theory - bring her back to close to what she was before she fell ill two weeks ago.

One doctor says it's almost like she had a stroke as far as how her brain is responding. Typically, they wake up breathing intubated people once a day, but they can't get her to wake up at all. One doctor says she doesn't have blood in her stools, it's just blood from hemorrhoids. So which is it? Tomorrow if I go to the hospital to see how the CT scan goes, they told me a different doctor will be charge of her case - they think anyway. Today I got so frustrated that I just said "call me with any updates" and left before I lost my temper. Tomorrow if I can get an update - from any of the several doctors that all seem to have a different take on the situation - I hope they don't ask me if I have any questions. I will respectfully ask them if it would make any difference, since I seem to get different information from every doctor anyway.

 

[oldfella1962]

Prayers for you and your family. Has to be hard not having “faith” at times like this. I honestly couldn’t imagine it.

Thank you for your concern! I do indeed have "faith" but not by the Christian definition obviously. I have faith in the hospital she's in (they saved my life a time or two) and medical science in general - which is always incessantly improving in most developed countries. I definitely have faith in my family, and whatever choices I make are putting my family as a whole at the forefront. I have faith in the process - the mechanisms - of life on this planet. The rules of life apply to every living thing equally, but within those rules the game can be played in every which way imaginable.

Bottom line just as some people can't imagine living without faith in a supernatural deity, I personally don't have a need for a belief in the supernatural. There very well might be a god or gods, but I am not convinced of the existence of any god, let alone a specific god. It seems to me that in many cases gods seem to be a reflection of the tribes that create them. I am personally convinced that the Abrahamic god is a great example of a tribe/society/culture creating god in their own image - and for a specific purpose to benefit that society. I totally understand why the proto-Israelites did this, and I'm not blaming them a bit. You "have to do what you have to do" to keep your tribe together. That said, I do not have to follow Judaism nor the other religions (some never caught on and died out) based on Judaism. No offence to anybody that wants to follow these beliefs, nor any other supernatural beliefs. Again, thanks to you and everybody on GON Forums for their support and advice! It really is a big help to me & my family.

 

[oldfella1962]

I can only speak for my own county and state but a "Power of Attorney was a must have to fulfill my mothers wishes as she declined in mental and physical health.

Yes I am so glad that my wife and I drew up wills and "medical directives" years ago. One of the smartest decisions we ever made. If my wife ends up not pulling through, I am drawing up another will & medical directive tweaked a bit to reflect my current family structure which has changed a lot with our kids getting married & having kids and so forth. The Army now has a lawyer's office in the hospital which is of course free for active duty & retired military members and their dependents. The Army has been on a "common sense and actual improvements" kick lately for some reason, at least here at Fort Eisenhower (formerly Fort Gordon).

 

[basstrkr]

Yes I am so glad that my wife and I drew up wills and "medical directives" years ago. One of the smartest decisions we ever made. If my wife ends up not pulling through, I am drawing up another will & medical directive tweaked a bit to reflect my current family structure which has changed a lot with our kids getting married & having kids and so forth. The Army now has a lawyer's office in the hospital which is of course free for active duty & retired military members and their dependents. The Army has been on a "common sense and actual improvements" kick lately for some reason, at least here at Fort Eisenhower (formerly Fort Gordon).

Sounds like you are prepared, I was too but on the day of the Big decision the EMT required POA.

 

[oldfella1962]

Sounds like you are prepared, I was too but on the day of the Big decision the EMT required POA.

Always some kind of a curveball.

 

[oldfella1962]

Update: my wife is still unconscious - 25 days straight so far. But on the bright side her lungs & kidneys are much better and her liver is functioning slightly better. They transferred her from the ICU to a "specialty care" clinic in Augusta which is only 1/2 hour away from my house, so no problem visiting her. My plan is to be with her when she does finally regain her consciousness - it will probably be very scary waking up surrounded by strangers and hooked up (temporarily of course) to machinery. Regardless she will be in this new facility for a few weeks - but unlike a mental health facility, they won't kick her to the curb ready or not when her time limit expires. Her complete (or as close as it will ever get) recovery is months down the road, so any further predictions are purely speculation. But hey, she can't accomplish anything from six feet under, so at least for now she has the "staying alive" part going okay - she left the ICU alive - which is the most important hurdle to overcome right now.