We Can Do Better at the End of Life

Dawniel Kupsch writes about her father's last days in the Saturday Evening Post:

This was never how I imagined it when I allowed my mind to wander the path of what would happen when a loved one was terminal — which, let’s admit, is something most of us shy away from in our musings. After reading about others who had gone through this, I always imagined a serene, peaceful process. I anticipated sitting by a bed and holding hands, meaningful final communication, and a chance to say goodbye amid conscientious nurses there for my loved one’s slightest twinge or need.

I know that was unrealistic, but after all I had heard about hospice care, I truly did expect there to be no pain. I expected my father to be spared embarrassment and shame. I did not expect to be so caught up in the minutiae of managing this process largely on my own, and that the caregivers I was able to access would be so overworked and frazzled, unable to invest themselves here in the moment with us. I never thought we would be just one stop on a long list for the day....Though I’m glad Dad is at peace, I’m also left with a lot of anger. I am angry that Dad was never given the option to arrange his own end in a way he would have preferred. For a fiercely independent and iron-willed man, there was no option to take a pill and go to sleep to end the suffering. I am angry that his final days were so agonizing and ugly after he had led such an amazing, beautiful life. And I am filled with grief that so many in this country are left to watch loved ones suffer and die like this — usually for much longer than four days — with inadequate care from an industry staffed by some of the most compassionate, undercompensated, underappreciated, and overworked folks I know.

As Americans, we pride ourselves on our freedoms. It seems to me that we should also have the basic freedom to decide to pass as peacefully as possible when confronted by the fact that there is no hope for recovery. It’s how we “humanely” free our beloved pets from their pain. How can we deny that freedom from our human loved ones — and from ourselves?

Dead Wrong: Let’s End Late-Life Suffering