3 ms·

"What conventional medicine does is pretty gruesome." What are you talking about? Chances are you would've died a century ago because of the lack of effective

by reason 16y ago

"What conventional medicine does is pretty gruesome." What are you talking about? Chances are you would've died a century ago because of the lack of effective treatments for CF. There are people who have dedicated their entire lives to researching the genetic mechanisms that lead to CF, not to mention the efforts being led to better understand those behind cancer. I think you need to give conventional medicine some credit.

Mz 16y ago
I do give conventional medicine some credit for keeping me alive. But if I continued pursuing conventional treatments, I would be a life-long legal drug addict and too ill to work. My life would suck in quite a lot of ways. Conventional medicine keeps people alive. But at quite a high cost, a cost that makes many people -- like Lucidending and, at one time, me -- feel that death would be preferable. Anyway, probably not a good idea to do an AMAA if this is the reception my comments get here, where I am already a member and speak pretty openly about having gotten myself well. Peace.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
  - Mz 16y ago
    EDIT: The deleted post asked what I thought about assisted suicide. I don't know why it was deleted. It seemed like a perfectly reasonable question to me. So I am leaving my reply, for better or worse. -------------- It is not anything I have come up with some "position" on. I know I wanted to die ten years ago and saw that as the only hope of an end to my suffering. I know that I continue to routinely feel like "god must hate me" and feel like death is the only way out -- that getting well, paying my bills and all that is just too much for one person to do without real support. It feels really, really unfair. I could get rewarded and supported for not getting well -- I could get free medical care, go on disability as I get too sick to work, etc. But getting well? Up yours, bitch. You're crazy and made this entire thing up anyway. Forget any kind of financial support for the costs involved. There isn't even sympathy in most circles. So my life is still hard. And has always been hard. Living without a diagnosis and being routinely accused of being a hypochondriac was also hard. And I did attempt suicide at age 17. But what I believe is this: They now have such an ability to keep you technically "alive" that our definitions have to change and right to die legislation and discussions like this one are inevitably going to be part of the struggle to come up with some meaningful, humane means to decide it is okay for someone to just stop pursuing heroic efforts and, if nothing else, let nature take its course. My "position", if I have one at all in this debate, is to offer information on a more humane alternative that offers better quality of life rather than merely extending life but at the cost of so much suffering that many people would rather die instead. The only possible alternative that makes sense to me is to make it a priority to make medical care more humane so that staying alive doesn't so completely destroy your quality of life as to make one desperately wish for death. A few years ago, a relative was in the hospital in a critical care unit. A very old, very ill person (like in their 80's) on the same ward coded over and over. They spent two weeks resuscitating this person and performing gruesome invasive procedures -- because the family wasn't ready to let go. This person was not ever going to get better and go home again. Everyone knew that. The family knew that. The staff knew that. They did not prolong her life. They only prolonged her death. And her suffering. We have no choice but to wrestle with such questions given where medical technology has brought us. Otherwise we are in danger of coming to a point where everyone gets put on an iron lung or some such and we just don't bury you.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]

by reason 16y ago

Mz 16y ago

I do give conventional medicine some credit for keeping me alive. But if I continued pursuing conventional treatments, I would be a life-long legal drug addict and too ill to work. My life would suck in quite a lot of ways. Conventional medicine keeps people alive. But at quite a high cost, a cost that makes many people -- like Lucidending and, at one time, me -- feel that death would be preferable. Anyway, probably not a good idea to do an AMAA if this is the reception my comments get here, where I am already a member and speak pretty openly about having gotten myself well. Peace.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
- Mz 16y ago
  EDIT: The deleted post asked what I thought about assisted suicide. I don't know why it was deleted. It seemed like a perfectly reasonable question to me. So I am leaving my reply, for better or worse. -------------- It is not anything I have come up with some "position" on. I know I wanted to die ten years ago and saw that as the only hope of an end to my suffering. I know that I continue to routinely feel like "god must hate me" and feel like death is the only way out -- that getting well, paying my bills and all that is just too much for one person to do without real support. It feels really, really unfair. I could get rewarded and supported for not getting well -- I could get free medical care, go on disability as I get too sick to work, etc. But getting well? Up yours, bitch. You're crazy and made this entire thing up anyway. Forget any kind of financial support for the costs involved. There isn't even sympathy in most circles. So my life is still hard. And has always been hard. Living without a diagnosis and being routinely accused of being a hypochondriac was also hard. And I did attempt suicide at age 17. But what I believe is this: They now have such an ability to keep you technically "alive" that our definitions have to change and right to die legislation and discussions like this one are inevitably going to be part of the struggle to come up with some meaningful, humane means to decide it is okay for someone to just stop pursuing heroic efforts and, if nothing else, let nature take its course. My "position", if I have one at all in this debate, is to offer information on a more humane alternative that offers better quality of life rather than merely extending life but at the cost of so much suffering that many people would rather die instead. The only possible alternative that makes sense to me is to make it a priority to make medical care more humane so that staying alive doesn't so completely destroy your quality of life as to make one desperately wish for death. A few years ago, a relative was in the hospital in a critical care unit. A very old, very ill person (like in their 80's) on the same ward coded over and over. They spent two weeks resuscitating this person and performing gruesome invasive procedures -- because the family wasn't ready to let go. This person was not ever going to get better and go home again. Everyone knew that. The family knew that. The staff knew that. They did not prolong her life. They only prolonged her death. And her suffering. We have no choice but to wrestle with such questions given where medical technology has brought us. Otherwise we are in danger of coming to a point where everyone gets put on an iron lung or some such and we just don't bury you.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]