(Well, that’s some headline!)
I’ve spent much of the last two days in a hospital ward for severe stroke victims trying to communicate with something that was once my mother but now was unable to walk, unable to speak (apart from incomprehensible moaning) and no longer recognised either me or my sister.
It’s quite a shock to see someone, who at 90 still went out for lunch a few times a week, went to the theatre twice a month and enjoyed going out walking the dog transformed overnight into a helpless, hopeless invalid.
When I eventually left the hospital, I ate a big fillet steak accompanied by a good red wine and then did some other things that cannot be mentioned on a polite blog like snouts-in-the-trough. Strangely, as anyone who has attended a funeral will know, there is nothing so life-enhancing than being faced with a ‘memento mori’ – in my case, some stroke patients who suddenly went from healthy, happy people to hopeless basket cases that would never recover from their condition.
(Please don’t think I’m callous. But I spent over 20 years married to a cancer surgeon, then over 10 years with someone specialising in ‘palliative care’ – basically, when my current wife turns up, it’s time to start buying the flowers and planning the funeral. So, I’m possibly more immune than most people to stories of suffering and death)
A few years ago, the former editor of the British Medical Journal claimed that cancer is the best way to die because it gives people the chance to come to terms with their own mortality and prepare for their own deaths.
Dr Richard Smith, an honorary professor at the University of Warwick, said that a protracted death allowed time to say goodbye to loved ones, to organise one’s financial affairs, listen to favourite pieces or music or poetry and leave final messages.
He claimed that any pain of dying could be made bearable through ‘love, morphine, and whisky’’.
Writing in a blog for the BMJ, Dr Smith admitted that his view was ‘romantic’, but said charities should stop spending billions trying to find a cure for the disease because it was clearly the best option for an ageing population. After all, we all have to die. So, better to have a death that is predictable than one that is totally unexpected like a debilitating stroke that condemns you to years living as a helpless, hopeless, incontinent invalid or a car accident that kills you when you and your family had expected you to live for many more years.
And certainly better than a truly ghastly Alzheimers/Dementia sickness and death where your body may survive long after your brain has died.
Of course, the doctor’s article was immediately denounced by the usual lefty, progressive, holier-than-thou, we-always-know-better libtards whose only purpose in life is to find something at which to be offended and crowds of them took to the media to accuse the doctor of “insensitivity”. For libtards, mentioning death seems to be “insensitive”. Perhaps libtards think they will live forever?
My mother died two years after a severe stroke.
My father died about one year after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Neither was a dignified way to go. But as you say,
at least my Dad got his affairs in order.
That is why I make sure that my will is always kept
up to date.
As for me, I’ve always thought that a sudden instant death would be preferable. After a decent time on earth obviously.
Coincidentally we were talking to some good friends on Saturday. A close aquientance of their’s suffered a catastrophic brain haemorrhage two years ago but ‘survived’. He has been in a nursing home since, they think he is aware but basically no longer has an existence ! His wife and friends are in complete limbo not able to move on figuratively or physically. One has to question what is the point of prolonging this state of affairs for anyone involved.
Excuse the different tack but this is interesting.
Wh they hate Russia and China…
http://www.silverdoctors.com/silver/silver-news/the-deep-states-gold-scam/
Browns bottom and dissolution of the European Union.
https://wealth.goldmoney.com/research/goldmoney-insights/central-banks-and-gold?gmrefcode=gata
And finally it is a thousand years ago 1017 that King Cnut united England for the first time and as a Christian country too. It hasnt all been easy but it has brought us through thick and thin. Now that is all over and we are to become a nothing third world multicultural multi faith mess state , how sad to see us roll over and degenerate at the behest of Cultural Marxism the destroyer …
Sounded good up until you started the usual name-calling/blaming game zeroing in on the Libtards.
Why not take that extra step and scapegoat; blame the Libtards for inventing cancer. Trump would, if offered the right opportunity.
Name-calling, however, is what it’s all about in your world. It put Trump in the White House. It speaks volumes about the person doing the name-calling.
I think that in your feminazi rage you’re slightly missing the point. The point is that the doctor in question risked his job and reputation by writing the article because in today’s politically-correct world daring to state the truth about anything is apparently a ‘crime’
I have a close connection with my local GP surgery. It is increasingly noticeable that there are more cancer sufferers in their late 30’s and 40’s. Survival seems to be almost a pure lottery but when you see children and teenagers losing a parent it is very sad. That said I am vehemently against the continued “feeling sorry for people” television and media. Witness the large number of false mental health and drug related illness which the NHS panders to in the name of care. However, on the whole, our health care is light years better than hitherto so we should be grateful.
An unpleasant testing time for you David …. I know.
Just hope or prey for mercy.
Dave H
My father is in a nursing home with dementia. The cancer, that would have stopped him (and loved ones around him) from suffering the dementia, is being kept at bay through medication. The look of horror on some faces when my mother and I dare to mention withholding the medication to save the suffering all round.