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What Broke My Father’s Heart
- RiderOfGiraffes 16y agoSingle page: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/magazine/20pacemaker-t.html?ref=magazine&pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/magazine/20pacemaker-t.htm...
- moultano 16y agoDoes anyone know why they split these into so many pages? Is it really just ad impressions? I still don't understand that.
- Kisil 16y agoI imagine it's also for tracking how far through the article readers get. That would be useful feedback for the writer: "Katy, you lost 44% of the audience after page three..."
- protomyth 16y agoThis is one of two reasons I will use the Safari Reader (excessive pages and too small fonts).
- michael_dorfman 16y agoWow, what a beautifully written piece.
- Sukotto 16y agoI sincerely hope that, if my ability to think and remember die, that my family and friends will help my body follow.
- dmm 16y agoIf you really mean that, make sure you tell them what you want. Better yet, put your wishes in writing too.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- aarongough 16y agoI sat down all my friends, my parents and my girlfriend and told them this a while ago. If I can't tell you that I want to keep on living, and give you a good reason why, then please help me out of my misery. At some point I need to write this into a living will as well. I think that doing so is a good thing for anyone to do.
- ticktock 16y agoi didn't read the whole article, but do you think we will start seeing articles/movies/news like this more and more designed to adjust our perception of death?
- kiba 16y agoWe don't have the proper tools to maintain and repair our bodies like we can with our houses and cars, at least not completely. What we got is medicine too imprecise to repair many parts of the human body.
- GrandMasterBirt 16y agoGreat article. I have a similar outlook on life, I would rather die than lose my mind, and I discussed this with my wife already. I think the point is not the pacemaker. But the elongation of life and not seeing death as a good thing. If we always chose to prolong life, under any circumstance, then people profit (a dying person needs lots of medical care) and their caretakers only suffer. The person, I don't know, is it better to live with a half-working brain? Is it even living at that point? I think while people want to live, people need to face death early, and tell their loved onces what their wishes are. And hopefully this sort of situation won't happen, or not for long.
- ticktock 16y agowhat if - a year later, they figure out a way to fix you - but now, to late, you're dead and buried/cremated.
- protomyth 16y agoI have gone with the theory - if it is anything but my brain, use all the machines / treatments (too paranoid that they'll find a cure / fix 10 seconds after I die). If my brain is damaged, just let the body go, because what was I has already left.
- lifeisshort 16y agoI dont think you have any idea of how harsh treatments can be. I went through radiations and invasive surgery to treat cancer. I am already wondering how much more I will be willing to endure and permanently loose if the cancer spread. I am scared to not even have a peaceful and descent way out if things get too tough. I am under 30.
- protomyth 16y agoNo, I am well aware of how bad treatment can be. I am just not willing to go quietly unless it is a problem with the brain. If it is mental impairment then I am already gone.
- qeorge 16y agoAmazing story. Brought me to tears. My step-grandfather found himself in a similar position about 5 years ago. He'd been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and was in for a long decline. He opted to refuse food, and died within a few weeks. Sadly, that's the only option available to many who are ready to move on. I remember him comforting his wife and daughters, telling them not to be scared, even as he lay hallucinating and dying. He'd lived a good life to an old age, and he was ready. We owe our parents better. Death is a part of life.
- Zarkonnen 16y agoYeah, this made me cry. My grandfather has been bed-ridden with throat cancer for months, unable to get better or die, unable to speak, losing his mind from all the painkillers, his relationship with his wife breaking under the strain.
- robryan 16y agoIt may end up only being a very short period of time in human history where we are advanced enough to prolong life with these type of stopgap measures without being able to treat the causes.
- three14 16y agoI'm not responding to the specific story in the article, but - Several of my grandparents had dementia of one sort or another. They clearly could still enjoy life, but completely differently than when they had their faculties. I wonder, if you could have gotten the question through to them, if they would have felt their lives weren't worth living. It doesn't seem the same question to ask a 30-year-old, "would you like to keep living at age 80 with no short term memory?" and to ask an 80-year-old with no short term memory, "is your life worth living?"
- carbocation 16y agoThis is really insightful. There is actually a huge body of research that does exactly what you suggest, and it largely supports your implied conclusion: people prefer death in hypotheticals, and prefer life when the question is no longer hypothetical.
- dcx 16y agoI agree with the research, but that does sound oddly tautological. Of course the people sampled preferr life! You can't sample the ones who didn't... (One would hope that was controlled for though.)
- DanielBMarkham 16y agoAs somebody who has been in this spot and known many more who have been there, it was a good article. But I had a hard time sorting out the political bullshit. I eventually got overwhelmed by it and bailed out. Doctors peddle their wares on a piecework basis; communication among them is haphazard; thinking is often short term; nobody makes money when medical interventions are declined; and nobody is in charge except the marketplace. No. This is not true. If the marketplace were in charge, the people who got the service would control and be responsible for paying for it by making free and informed decisions. Instead, this is a case where regulation is in charge -- payments are made based on arbitrary rules set forth by well-meaning people. People who might read articles like this and think gee, if we only made up a few more rules, or had some really smart guys in charge of the right stuff, we could fix these other unintended consequences we made last time we mucked around. There is no need for some uber-doctor who could somehow take the place of the buyer. There is nobody who can effectively take the place of the buyer. That's one of the main structural problems of the system. It's not that the marketplace is working -- it's that we've perverted and destroyed the marketplace and instead we have a free-for-all for handouts based on policies created by whatever gets votes. Which will continue to get worse. Wonderful writing, though. I am always amazed at the capacity of folks to see their entire life experience through their own filters (including me) regardless of what the actual facts are. I hope writing this helped her reach closure and say goodbye
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- sophacles 16y agoYes I trust the doctor, hospital, and manufacturer to provide me with completely unbiased information on what stuff I need for my health. The problem is, the only people who can interpret that information are the same people who directly profit from my choice. They will suggest unnecessary and potentially harmful things. I guess I could go to medical school to really understand things well enough to make a truly informed decision. That would be great for the concept of separation of labor! Of course I am probably just being paranoid. We should instead head back to the good ol' free market medicine days, when anyone could put anything in a bottle and sell it as a patent cure-all. Back then people lived way longer, and had way better options for medicine. Please note: I'm not saying the system isn't messed up, I'm saying you solution really isn't much better.
- siculars 16y agoStory aside, a few days back there was an article, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1424893 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1424893, on how the NYT would ban the word "twitter" from usage by their writers. Nevertheless, the author uses the word "googled" (page 3). And that is part of the beauty of the English language - new words and new meanings. No doubt, the "ban" will be lifted within a year or two.
- ticktock 16y agoHallucinations in Hospital Pose Risk to ... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/science/21delirium.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/science/21delirium.html Just as I predicted - more and more stories like this are in the pipeline. There is a pervasive message in them; "if your old, you should die. Everyone is better off."
- MikeCapone 16y agoThis just made me donate an extra $100 to the SENS Foundation (sens.org), which is working on curing the diseases of aging (many of which aren't considered "diseases" by the regulators at the FDA, so many are dramatically under-researchers despite the massive amount of suffering that they cause).