We are both in agreement that breaking the bank trying to hold on is pretty pointless and as long as we could be kept pain free, that is the way we would want to handle the situation. Thankfully we are both in good health but are looking at the real possibility of someday being faced with that very scenario. With the amount of money being spent on health care during the last few months of life we feel this is a reasonable position, even if it means ending ones own life prematurely (as opposed to spending a fortune prolonging life by medical means) in order to preserve savings for the remaining spouse.
Just wonder how others feel about this morbid subject and have you ever discussed with your spouse ?
+1. I am a fanatic DNR/no hydration, let me die if I am terminal or vegetative type. But, I suspect if I start getting old and feeble I would postpone pulling the plug on myself until things were truly bad. But by that time I might have turned the corner to dementia or physical incapacitation and be past doing it. I don't see any good answers since I could never ask anyone else to take such an action.
It sounds so straightforward and rational when we're talking about our own lives now, but I always wonder how that holds up with time.
About the only thing I feel able to guarantee is that it'll probably go better at home than in a hospital... perhaps a hospice would do a good job.
My father turns 78 in a couple months, and he's willing to endure 6-9 chemotherapy treatments to reduce his multiple myeloma pain. Admittedly Alzheimer's patients may not be able to give informed consent, but I doubt he'd want someone to carry out his euthanasia instructions just because he can no longer comprehend them. But he has the typical healthcare POA and DNR in place.
My grandfather lived for over 14 years in a full-care facility with a five-minute memory. Yet he was happy every day, and indeed it was the happiest period of his life. An especially poignant example was his paperback collected works of Shakespeare, with only the first 15 pages of the first volume actually read but heavily thumbed over. It appeared that every morning he got to rediscover Shakespeare all over again for the first time.
Spouse has recently begun remarking that if I leave her a young widow... she'll kill me. Yeah, we've known each other for over three decades but there's not any part of her statement that I feel is safe to remark upon, so I just smile & nod my head in agreement.
There was a rather notorious case of planned suicide carried out by Admiral Nimitz and his spouse in 2002. (Not Admiral Chester, but his son Admiral Chester Jr.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Nimitz,_Jr. Some would see that as a courageous submariner having the guts to carry out his spouse's wish to die with dignity. Others would see it as the cowardly act of a controlling & coercive martinet who browbeat his spouse into agreeing to succumb to his pathetic example.
I'd like to think that I'll always be wondering what tomorrow's sunrise will look like. But spouse is planning to someday stockpile Percocet just in case.
