jackytoo

Yes I feel that way too. No-one knows how they will feel until they are or due to be in the last stages of a terminal disease. I think I would want to cling on to the very end. Pain control for cancer is very effective now with pallitive care. I would always wonder if I had done the right thing by helping someone. When my Mother was in the last stages of cancer she fought to the very end and was optimistic (at least in front of me). The last few days I used to hope for her to slip away in her sleep and I even felt guilty about that.

Lynn R

When my father said to me that he had had enough and wished he could die, I felt so guilty and helpless that there was nothing I could do for him. I still do. I would gladly have helped him if I could, and thought of it as the last thing I could do to show I loved him. Depends which way you look at it, I guess.

I don't think it is always just down to pain control, either. Sometimes people must get just so sick of not being able to do anything but lie in a hospital bed and be dependent on others for every bodily function, I know I would find that intolerable.

Rosemary

I agree with you, it is not always about pain control. When my MIL had her last stroke she became lucid for only a short time and then lasted several weeks totally out of it. My OH felt that she (as the person) had already died and wanted things to end for her, however when she was moved from the hospital to a nursing home he was asked whether they should continue to hydrate her or not, he could not go with the obvious and asked them to keep her hydrated. Very difficult when you are so torn between what you want to do but feel that you cannot do it.

Rosemary

I think that if they had said that they could give her something to quicken things up he would have accepted but withdrawing the basics seemed so cruel.

HBG

The trouble with legalising euthanasia in the UK is that both the Church of England and the Catholic Church are opposed to it. The Churches influence is waning, as is the Monarchy's, but I can't personally think of suitable alternatives.

So we muddle along, listen to the Archbishop's speech and applaud Royal weddings. Pockets of opinion support more freedom, but they are muted, the majority of our people don't care about issues like euthanasia and pensioners going skint, the future is new life and council houses for single mothers.

Maybe that's how it should be?

megmet

I don't see what is so disturbing!

The truly religious (which I'm not) don't have to be involved in it in any way at all, but by the same token they have no right to try to stop others getting help to end their suffering if that is what they wish to do!

As for dying it holds no fear for me, but dying in great pain and without dignity and control does.
If we love someone enough then we have to let them go, doing that one final thing for them takes great strength....but an even greater love!

bil

No. We should have the right to choose.

megmet

I wholeheartedly agree Bil...

What makes these people who "have religion" think they have the right to impose their views on those of us that don't?
Have they learned nothing from the empty pews and derelict churches....their day of dictating how we should all think feel and act are long gone!

bil

Given what so many prelates get up to, they are in no position to preach to us on what moral stance we should take.

rachelk

It was during my first few months in Spain that the doctors from the Severo Ochoa hospital in Madrid were suspended over allegations of malpractice for providing palliative care. They were accused of the "homicide" of hundreds of patients.

They were cleared but if I remember rightly they never got their jobs back.

It's one of those news stories I will never forget and if there is such a thing as karmic justice, then those who made the accusations and brought the charges will die horrible lingering deaths with no hope of relief.

HBG

Apart from posting the link, I don't really have much to add.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...sick-wife.html

It seems that wealthy and intelligent people are more able to deal with major problems, but the internet is there for all of us. I curse it sometimes, worrying what my seven-year-grandson might find, but the couple in the quoted article found what they wanted and I can only sympathise.