What are the physical and emotional challenges of aging?

[Hobin]

I can no longer gain muscle mass by simply drinking a glass of orange juice. I have to work out hard just to avoid the saggy butt syndrome.

Given that 100g of oranges contain only approximately 0.70 grams of protein, I'm sure you used to drink a lot of orange juice.

 

[Andre]

Thanks, Borek

 

[Evo]

Sorry to hear of your loss Andre.

 

[rhody]

Andre.

I have witnessed first hand what you went through twice. It is wrenching, no other way to describe it. I feel for you having been there, the fresh pain will pass, and I am convinced many of the memories that go with them with time, hopefully to be replaced by more happy ones that we cherish inside.

Rhody...

 

[turbo]

Hard news, Andre. When an elderly person is suffering, with no chance of remission, there ought to be a legal way out.

 

[lisab]

Hard news, Andre. When an elderly person is suffering, with no chance of remission, there ought to be a legal way out.

There is, in some states (Washington and Oregon, maybe more). But it must be arranged well in advance of being needed, as it has to be reviewed by third parties.

Sorry to hear about it, Andre - condolences to you and your family.

 

[Evo]

There is, in some states (Washington and Oregon, maybe more). But it must be arranged well in advance of being needed, as it has to be reviewed by third parties.

I don't get why death with dignity isn't allowed everywhere. A person is terminally ill, in incredible pain, there is nothing doctors can do at this point. At this point any person should be able to say "end this". I have known people dying of cancer that suffered horribly and needlessy toward the end of their life and it was so wrong to force them to endure that suffering with no hope of recovering. What kind of monsters does that make us? All because it might offend someone's beliefs?

 

[chiro]

I don't get why death with dignity isn't allowed everywhere. A person is terminally ill, in incredible pain, there is nothing doctors can do at this point. At this point any person should be able to say "end this". I have known people dying of cancer that suffered horribly and needlessy toward the end of their life and it was so wrong to force them to endure that suffering with no hope of recovering. What kind of monsters does that make us? All because it might offend someone's beliefs?

Couldn't agree more.

I see more and more this kind of thing where other people think they know better for others but themselves and this is the result for this.

Trying to keep people having a heartbeat for the sake of having only a heartbeat is really not a good precedent to set for the entire health or medical profession and although there are a lot of good medical practitioners and others working in the medical industry who will give the patient a real choice, unfortunately it seems that in many cases, their is a conflict of interest.

 

[Hobin]

I don't get why death with dignity isn't allowed everywhere. A person is terminally ill, in incredible pain, there is nothing doctors can do at this point. At this point any person should be able to say "end this". I have known people dying of cancer that suffered horribly and needlessy toward the end of their life and it was so wrong to force them to endure that suffering with no hope of recovering. What kind of monsters does that make us? All because it might offend someone's beliefs?

I completely agree. Then again, I'm Dutch, and according to Santorum, we kill our elderly for fun here.

Andre, I'm sorry to hear of your loss. My condolences.

 

[Andre]

Thanks all, of course in The Netherlands there is a law about this too. But the conditions were not met to conduct active euthanasia. That's not suitable for this type of cases.

It should be noted that the decision to stop treatment was taken together with the patient. The complication is that it may have suggested that there were alternatives where there were not. So, the first time that he got morphine, it made him feel much better again and he asked if he could reverse 'his' decision. That was a difficult moment.

 

[turbo]

My wife's aunt's obituary is in today's paper. I knew that she was a nurse, but didn't know that she was the assistant chief of the nursing staff in an American military hospital 67th General Hospital in England during WWII, or that she was a captain when she was discharged from the Army.

 

[SecularSanity]

Anyway, I've been preoccupied with watching my inlaw dad die in slow motion this month. It took about 10 days, after he was discharged from hospital, because the treatment of the illness was even worse to his organs. There were no more options left.

The last two days were really awful. Nobody should have to suffer like that. Really shocking. You'd like to shout to the doc, just to increase the dose of morphine more and more.

But that's illegal, which seems to be more important than useless suffering.

My story is a little different. I was young and naïve when my father died. He was 51. He had idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. The cause was unknown but all of his siblings had died from it, as well. He was on a transplant list, but like most patients with IPF, he died from complications due to pneumonia. He might have lasted a little longer if the doctor had prescribed the correct antibiotics for the type of pneumonia that he had. He was seeing a lung specialist in the city, but in the end, his family practitioner treated him. He was new and mistakes happen.

However, he promised me that he wouldn’t suffer. He said that he could have as much morphine as he needed. He explained the whole process, and how he’d eventually slip into a coma, but he kept waking up, grasping for breath, and he was very afraid. The whole process took about 5 days. My father made me promise that I’d get him more morphine whenever he squeezed my hand, but when I went to locate his nurse, she informed me that he had received the legal limit. He suffered terribly and so did I.

The day after he passed away his lung specialist called me. When I told him what had happened, he lost his temper, cursed a little, and then told me that they had given him the wrong antibiotics, and that there was no such thing as a legal limit. We met with the medical board, who after speaking with the nurse, told us that she did not want to contribute to his death, due to her religious beliefs. It was a religious hospital.

Of course, they were very concerned about a lawsuit, but the story became public, and that was enough for me.

I believe in the right to die but this guy does have some valid points. What he revealed was society’s innate and primitive principle regarding even pain relief for the dying. We have not even begun to distinguish facts from fiction in the laws of pain relief, much less suicide.

Do people have the right to choose when to die?-Bigthink.com

About half of patients dying of cancer have severe pain. Yet, only half of these patients receive reliable pain relief. We can relieve the pain, but because of the misconceptions regarding pain and the drugs used, many patients die in agony.

In my father’s case, the nurse was dumb enough to put this in her notes, “Moaning and crying out-will continue to monitor.” Her reasoning stemmed from her religious convictions but usually it is from fear of criminal liability.

Dyspnea is one of the most feared symptoms. This was also my father’s biggest fear, but morphine can actually reduce dyspnea and the anxiety, without causing harmful respiratory depression.

This happens all the time. It’s very common. The fears that people have about dying in pain are justified. There is an alarming lack of sensitivity regarding this issue.

I think that many people feel that it is an invasion of bodily integrity to force life sustaining medical treatments but it is not an invasion to restrict physician assistant suicide. I don’t get it, though. We have this strong innate desire to reduce suffering for the living but not for the dying. What business is it of society to require this prolongation and suffering? In my opinion, it all boils down to GOD. We want them to die naturally, in god’s hands. Am I right?

http://www.hospicepatients.org/euth-acct-three.html

When I first found out that my father was terminal, I would have done anything in my power to keep him alive. I even asked myself if it was selfish to want him to suffer so that I could have him for a few more minutes. One minute seemed so valuable but to him a minute seemed like an eternity. Trust me… if this woman had watched her mother suffer, as I had with my father, she would have been grateful that her mother remained in a coma. Although, I am an atheist, I prayed…I prayed for him to die. Nobody should have to suffer like that.

There is, in some states (Washington and Oregon, maybe more). But it must be arranged well in advance of being needed, as it has to be reviewed by third parties.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/obituaries/11252526-418/assisted-suicide-doctor-peter-goodwin-dead-at-83.html

"The Portland physician died Sunday in his home after using lethal chemicals obtained under an Oregon law he championed."

Dr. Peter Goodwin

It is not.

Nor is your avatar.

 

[lisab]

Yikes, what a nightmare that must have been, SS !

We met with the medical board, who after speaking with the nurse, told us that she did not want to contribute to his death, due to her religious beliefs. It was a religious hospital.

That pisses me off.

 

[rhody]

After SecularSanity's post I felt compelled to respond. My wife works for Dr Joan Teno, at Brown University, a recognized expert on end of life issues worldwide. Please refer to this report. If you google Joan Teno you will find lots of other testimony as well. This is a sample.

In a study we conducted of survivors of individuals who had been in a
nursing home in their last weeks of life, we found about one in three people
reported the need for better pain control, that they did not have enough emotional
support, and stated that their loved one was not treated with dignity. Only 42%
rated the care of their loved one as excellent compared to 70% for those persons
dying at home with hospice services. 3 Behind these rates lie compelling stories of
the urgency and need to improve.

If this is of any comfort to you, Dr Teno, and sympathetic members of congress with whom she has testified have been working for years to address the issues that you stated in your post. Hospice care in the patients last days is certainly a start. Many people are unaware that this service is available to them, and BTW, there are two categories of hospice care, paid hospice and volunteer hospice. You should research both, ask probing questions of each before making your decision to go with one or the other.

Rhody...

 

[rhody]

Yikes, what a nightmare that must have been, SS !



That pisses me off.

I can only state what we experienced with my wife's Mom passing last year, we had FOR PROFIT hospice care BTW. We had all the necessary paperwork for end of life directives filled out, signed, etc... My wife, her sister were the ones to carry out the advanced medical directives, and Dr Teno was by our side for the last two days of my wife's mother's suffering. Once the directive has been ordered and the doses of medication's were delivered to the Alzeheimer's unit where her Mom stayed, it was the designated responsibilty of the person taking responsibility of the meds to deliver them to ease her Mom's pain, which for the most part were carried out to the letter. You need to have a place to secure the meds, and again Dr Teno came through for us, she bought us a lock box to keep them in and snacks for everyone while we maintained vigil over her Mom. Thankfully, Dr Teno was there to guide us through the process.

This is important because our end of life experience differs from SecularSanity's, which for the most part made sure my wife's Mom was not in a significant amount of pain. In the end (last day or so) all of the patients senses are gone (we were not aware of this), they can't speak or even groan to express their pain. All they can do is increase breathing and elevate their heart rate, which happened in the early am hours of her Mom's last day. The hospice care giver was gone and my wife and her sister were asleep in the room. At some point her Mom's breathing and heart rate went way up, and upon arriving the hospice caregiver recognized this and gave her more medication to ease her pain. In the end late that same day she died peacefully. The medications were disposed of after inventory was taken. This is to ensure there are no possibility of a lawsuit. You never even think about these issues unfortunately until faced with them. At least now, some of the things we may need to face will be more out in the open. Even though painful, I think that is a good thing.

Rhody...

 

[SecularSanity]

Yikes, what a nightmare that must have been, SS !
That pisses me off.

Thanks!

And to boot, during this time, my husband was admitted with meningitis, my mother was recovering from surgery, and I had a two year old to contend with.

C'est la vie

After SecularSanity's post I felt compelled to respond. My wife works for Dr Joan Teno, at Brown University, a recognized expert on end of life issues worldwide. Please refer to this report. If you google Joan Teno you will find lots of other testimony as well. This is a sample.

If this is of any comfort to you, Dr Teno, and sympathetic members of congress with whom she has testified have been working for years to address the issues that you stated in your post. Hospice care in the patients last days is certainly a start. Many people are unaware that this service is available to them, and BTW, there are two categories of hospice care, paid hospice and volunteer hospice. You should research both, ask probing questions of each before making your decision to go with one or the other.

Rhody...

Bravo, Rhody! http://srbforum.com/Smileys/default/44969smiley__applause__1.gif

BTW, I sure hope Borek isn’t on the welcoming committee.

 

[physics girl phd]

My wife's aunt's obituary is in today's paper. I knew that she was a nurse, but didn't know that she was the assistant chief of the nursing staff in an American military hospital 67th General Hospital in England during WWII, or that she was a captain when she was discharged from the Army.

It's things like this that make you realize that so many wonderful stories go untold. My dad (who had passed away prior) had told us that Grandpa had "taught math and other subjects" when he was stationed at WPAFB during WWII. But grandpa's obit indicated he was in an intelligence unit... I personally suspect cryptography/cryptanalysis based on some of his other connections (such as NCR), but of course, who knows. Towards the end, Grandpa would have been senile enough to probably tell us had we known what to ask. He could go on and on about early baseball (God bless some of my former boyfriends for listening to all that...).

Sorry about your loss...

 

[turbo]

It's things like this that make you realize that so many wonderful stories go untold. My dad (who had passed away prior) had told us that Grandpa had "taught math and other subjects" when he was stationed at WPAFB during WWII. But grandpa's obit indicated he was in an intelligence unit... I personally suspect cryptography/cryptanalysis based on some of his other connections (such as NCR), but of course, who knows. Towards the end, Grandpa would have been senile enough to probably tell us had we known what to ask. He could go on and on about early baseball (God bless some of my former boyfriends for listening to all that...).

Sorry about your loss...

Thanks. Helen was a wonderful woman, and sharp as a tack all of her life. Typical "dry" sense of humor that is the norm in Maine. She never told me about her war-time service, and it also came as a surprise to my wife. The obit featured a photo of her in her Army uniform. She was a really good-looking woman.

She left instructions that in lieu of flowers, she would like her friends and family to make contributions to a hospice-care organization.

 

[turbo]

It seems that some "nursing homes" in Maine are warehouses for the elderly, and that really ticks me off. My mother-in-law was on a waiting-list for a highly-regarded nursing home a few miles from here, close enough so that all of her children could have visited regularly, and the "crazy sisters" bullied the sane sisters into allowing them to keep her at home. The chief crazy sister moved her mother into her house, and when she found out that she couldn't provide 24-hour care for a 95-year-old with senile dementia, she parked her in a nursing home 1/2 hour away.

My wife and her sole sane sister do their best to visit her to find out how she is being treated, and it doesn't look good. If they show up in late afternoon and their mother is sedated and confined to a wheelchair, with her bed still unmade, things look sad. I don't want to go that way.

There should be laws... Effective, enforced laws.

 

[Evo]

There should be laws... Effective, enforced laws.

Such as?

There are plenty of laws, so I don't get what you are referring to. If they get her out of bed in the afternoon, they wouldn't make the bed up again, as far as I know, hospitals and nursing homes make beds once a day. There is no reason to do it more often, unless the bed is soiled.

It's good that they get her up and into a wheel chair, I'd be more concerned if she was left in bed all day. Of course my grandmother was a quadraplegic, so she could not get out of bed at all. What had to be done was shifting her regularly.

 

[rootX]

It seems that some "nursing homes" in Maine are warehouses for the elderly, and that really ticks me off. My mother-in-law was on a waiting-list for a highly-regarded nursing home a few miles from here, close enough so that all of her children could have visited regularly, and the "crazy sisters" bullied the sane sisters into allowing them to keep her at home. The chief crazy sister moved her mother into her house, and when she found out that she couldn't provide 24-hour care for a 95-year-old with senile dementia, she parked her in a nursing home 1/2 hour away.

My wife and her sole sane sister do their best to visit her to find out how she is being treated, and it doesn't look good. If they show up in late afternoon and their mother is sedated and confined to a wheelchair, with her bed still unmade, things look sad. I don't want to go that way.

There should be laws... Effective, enforced laws.

There's nothing compared to the care that family members can provide. Fortunately, both my grandparents were well cared until their death. They didn't have to go to a "nursing home". But still there's nothing compared to taking your own care.

I hope she move to a better nursing home

 

[Andre]

There's nothing compared to the care that family members can provide.

Not so sure, I have been observing how the staff of a nursing home took care of the last years of one of my folks. It was fantastic, really. Those girls did a real great job with incredible patience and always smiling. Hats off.

 

[Borek]

There's nothing compared to the care that family members can provide.

Not really. For someone working normal 8-hours job that's unrealistic, especially when your elders require 24 hours watch.

 

[rootX]

Not really. For someone working normal 8-hours job that's unrealistic, especially when your elders require 24 hours watch.

Yes that's true in this 8-hours world. But I never heard of these nursing homes before I moved to cities. It was more like a taboo to throw your parents into nursing house.

In my case, my cousin and his wife were living with my grandparents along with one-two home-helpers. They took care of their farms too while every other child of theirs moved into cities.

 

[Andre]

Interestingly, my current appartment was designed for care taking of seniors. Everything required for living is on the groundfloor for the seniors, and then upstairs there is another living facility for caretakers. The upstairs kitchen sink has been removed a long time ago. Not practical.

But I can handle some overnights for guests.

 

[rootX]

Interestingly, my current appartment was designed for care taking of seniors. Everything required for living is on the groundfloor for the seniors, and then upstairs there is another living facility for caretakers. The upstairs kitchen sink has been removed a long time ago. Not practical.

But I can handle some overnights for guests.

One of my relatives was on living on those oxygen things. They have bedrooms upstairs so it was quite a bit of work to bring her down everytime she had to visit doctor. She spent pretty much all of her last days in her bedroom.

But in case of my grandparents, just a new house was built so that they don't have to spend pretty much rest of their lives walking to washrooms or kitchen. Old house was more than a century old, quite senior-unfriendly!

 

[turbo]

My wife and I bought a single-story log house. Everything is on one floor, so no stairs. Actually, there are stairs down to the cellar, but with my arthritic knees and poor balance, I go down there only rarely.

The wife of the man that built this place was quite short, so counter-tops were low, sinks were low and shallow, etc. We had the kitchen re-done to standard heights. The kitchen and living room are coupled in an open floor-plan. The hallway has large storage areas on either side with louvered sliding doors, shelving, and hanger-rods and the bedroom and bathroom are at the end, directly across from one another.

It would be tough to find a decent house with all these features, unless one wants to live in a pre-fab box and can specify the layout in advance. I think we're set up as well as can be for our old age. The place heats easily with our little wood stove since the house is small, and if handling firewood gets tough years from now, there's always the hot-air oil furnace.

 

[nazarbaz]

I'm 37 but I was sick enough to think deeply about death these last few years. Sadly, I have nothing wise to say about it. I went through a period when going to the supermarket one street away from home was a real effort. I recovered and I manage to have an intense physical activity right now, but I'm lot darker.
I saw the reaper lurking at the corner and it basically transformed my way of looking at life... Not in a good and positive way, I'm afraid... It's not the fear of death, but the anxiety of wasting what's left...
Life is more dreadful than death.

 

[turbo]

Got a very sad phone call today. The wife of one of my oldest friends called me to tell me that my friend has cancer of the liver and the esophagus. His liver is so far gone that the doctors can't do a resection to buy him some time, and apparently the esophageal cancer is inoperable, as well. They would come from Pittsburgh to Maine once every summer to visit with my wife and me, and I will miss him terribly. He has a wicked sense of humor.

His wife says that he has little energy to spare, but I hope that he can call in the next day or so, so we can talk a bit one last time. So sad...

 

[turbo]

My friend and I are both atheists. I won't pray for him, and he wouldn't have prayed for me if the tables were turned. All I can do is offer his wife and him my best wishes. My wife called his wife tonight, and told her that they are both in our thoughts. That's the best we can do.

 

[turbo]

When my dying friend's mother passed away, there was no funeral - just a memorial service. It was held in the Congregational church in her home town because it was the largest meeting-house available. All the pews were full, all the seats in the overflow room were full, and the overflow room was crammed with people standing to pay their respects. The fire-marshal could have had a field-day. She was brought up as a Quaker and attended Unitarian services with her mother (despite having to drive 100 miles for the round-trip every weekend) and was universally loved in town. Nice woman.

My friend has that kind of temperament. I miss her and I will miss him. Nothing to prove, and no attitude. His mother never dinged us for drinking alcohol or coffee, but she and her mother used to drink hot water with cider vinegar and perhaps a touch of honey. Very nice people.

 

[turbo]

Very short call yesterday evening, and I am still so sad. I didn't get to talk to my friend, and his wife is almost incoherent and breaking down constantly.

My friend and I did everything together, and whenever there was any kind of a challenge, we would tackle it together. I have a couple of huge rocks that we collected together and only managed to gather through brute strength and some inventiveness. Every time I see them, I think of him.

 

[jim mcnamara]

Turbo -

I'm about 10 years older than you, but the 'memories-come-flooding-back' is a problem for me. You seem to enjoy it. Good.

Virtually everywhere I go I remember something that happened at that place. A few memories are really cool, fun times; most are fraught with either frustration or sadness:
watching my wife die slowly, a week of searching for my daughter after she ran away from the psychiatric hospital. Lots of fun stuff.

So I still work, and am really active. It keeps the ghosts at bay. And it is really enjoyable to get away - especially places where the ghosts don't dwell.

 

[turbo]

I'm glad you're still working, Jim. I would still be working if I was able to stand the presence of others (fragrances - even laundry products - throw me into a downward spiral) migraines, asthma, and arthritis pain are no fun, and those are the tip of the iceberg. I loved my last job. I hated the boss (moronic A$$, who finally learned to leave me alone after I made him over $1M net / year for a few years with a 2-person sales division), but the clients were so fun. If you are in the business of consigning and auctioning specialty materials (mine was militaria, so I got to handle a lot of high-end Civil War stuff) you get to interact with a lot of interesting people - collectors, experts, and appraisers included. I was so gratified when the country's top vexicologist (you can't sell a six-figure flag without her blessing) told me that even though she was retiring, I was welcome to keep sending her work. I never once sent her a crappy flag or a (decent) fake - so I was a pretty good filter to keep the junk out of her in-box. I wish I was still doing that kind of stuff.