Kingdom of Knuffel

I've only ever heard of huge outrage/issues that became public when one part of the family wanted one thing, and another part of the family wanted something else and they take each other to court.
Or the living will says one thing and the family tries to go against it, and THAT goes to court....

Otherwise I've never seen anyone ever weighing in on that kind of decision; they'd never even have a chance to know about it because that's part of patient confidentiality and it's a privacy-protected decision.


We had this choice for my paternal grandfather, who had a series of small strokes and then a massive one. And he had a living will, and he didn't want to be put on any kind of support at all, but my paternal grandmother just wasn't ready to let him go yet. And she put him on support. We (the rest of the family) decided that since who Grandpa was, was essentially gone already, and Grandma was still there... well, it was more important to us to care for the person still there, still hurting, still grieving. So we supported Grandma and just all took turns staying at the hospital with both of them and making sure she got out for walks each day and went to grief support meetings and after a week she was ready to say goodbye and decided to honor Grandpa's wishes and take him off the support machines.
If she'd held on to him for a whole lot longer we might have revisited matters though, because it's not healthy to live in denial for a huge length of time, either. She's still alive after all, and putting her own life on hold indefinitely for Grandpa's empty shell would be super unhealthy for her, and we might eventually have had to decide as a family to fight her over that choice.
I'm SO thankful we didn't have to.

But, Ambarsariya, I can see how people would end up fighting over it. It's not a matter of 'someone else knowing better', it's a matter of a conflict of concerns. Not just over the person in a coma but over the family members who either want to move on or who want to hold on... it's not just the direct action which has to be considered, it is the results of that action, and its effect on everyone else involved.
And when families take it to the public system to decide, via the courts rather than a private arbitration, or they try to deliberately drum up public support to help them in their otherwise private fight.... of course others will then weigh in. Partly because they want to make sure that their OWN choices, eventually, aren't taken away from them as a result of one family's inability to decide.

(IE if the courts say that the will must ALWAYS immediately be followed, then my grandmother would never have had a chance to 'say goodbye' as it were. Which would have been hard on her. If the courts said that the surviving family always gets final say no matter what then my own family who feel strongly about what should be done TO THEM will feel like they have no say in what happens to themselves, that they may as well not even make out a living will... and that's hard too.
So I can see how, when it comes to these cases, the general public could be justified in weighing in. They aren't so much talking about that specific case as they are the potential cases which involve them.)

Does that make sense at all? I hope that makes sense. It's about 5 am here, so making sense is hard right now.

My husband and I both want to go with doctor's opinion on this. If they there's a chance of waking up, sure. We'll put the other on life support for a while. If not we gonna pull the plug.

Wow, I don't know of anyone personally who has been in a coma.

I am also inclined to be optimistic. I'm not afraid of death, but I don't want to be killed if I still could have come back. I told my husband to let my children decide. It may seem harsh, but as their mother it should be 100% up to them whether I live or die. I would be at peace either way knowing that the decision is what they need. I don't want them to feel like anyone took me from them if they had objections.

My mom knows my statement is braindead is dead.
Not certain if she could do it though, I know I would have the hardest time to tell them to do it if it was my mom. :}

It's a hard decision.

Personally, not one I have had to make myself through I do feel under certain illnesses that people should have the choice to end things on their own terms, probably why you hear about people aiding with people whom had terminal cancer, etc, ending their lives.

I know last year, my dad was in and out of hospital and can't remember if he had stroke, etc but we were told he had brain damage and the chances of him having a normal, functioning life was very slim.

Unfortunatly me and my mom were never giving the decision to officially decide, my aunt decided to end the life support and he survived one day after this. My mom was not happy and in a way, I was happy I didn't have to make that decision.

Through it's a convo me and mom have had. If anything happened and she was either a veggie or brain dead, to have the plug pulled and I respect her choice. As for me, that's not something I honestly comfortable saying. I am still uncomfortable with death, mainly cause it's not knowing what it's beyond.. Heaven? Rebirth? It's just something I don't want to think too much about.

My mom had to make that decision with her mom, and, as much as I didn't like my grandmother, I agree with her stance on it. My grandmother was a very very independent woman, and if she couldn't be that way, she didn't want to be alive. I'm the same way. But, personally, I think that keeping the life support for a short amount of time so that people can come say their goodbyes and get closure is a good thing. Not having closure sucks.

Knowhere wrote:My mom had to make that decision with her mom, and, as much as I didn't like my grandmother, I agree with her stance on it. My grandmother was a very very independent woman, and if she couldn't be that way, she didn't want to be alive. I'm the same way. But, personally, I think that keeping the life support for a short amount of time so that people can come say their goodbyes and get closure is a good thing. Not having closure sucks.

Yes! That's the term I couldn't find earlier, talking about my grandfather. My grandmother needed closure before she could let go. Yes.

Thank you. That was helpful.