Am I the only one who is like DO NOT pull that plug…

[LiveWhatULove]

No, I work in healthcare, and there are plenty of patients and patient families who have unrealistic care goals in end of life situations. It is quite stressful for the medical and nursing staff, leading to moral distress and burn out. It is also quite challenging for the family.

[Catdaughter20]

Really, why?

[RIZZY]

Having been front and center to the decision making process several times, I can tell you it is a very difficult decision and not one that is always straight forward. Even DNRs/medical directives are not that straight forward.

However, the longer a person remains in a coma, the less likely they are to wake up from that coma. And if they do wake up, they will likely have brain injury and require a lifetime of care and physical therapy. Stories where someone is in a coma for a year and wake up with no issues are exceedingly rare to the point that if someone is hoping for that, they are hoping for a fairy tale.

The most likely scenario, depending on what happened and why you are in a coma, is that you will continue in a vegetative state for months or years and in the meantime, your family with go through unbearable anguish. It will completely devastate and uproot their lives and they will go through utter financial ruin. It is honestly easier on the family emotionally and financially if that person just passes away.

My husband and I have had several serious talks about it and he knows how I feel. But I know him and there is no way he would be able to let me go. He would absolutely go through ruin before agreeing to it. But I really do not want that to happen to my husband and children because I've watched it happen to people I love and it's awful.

[Heyteacher]

We have discussed this. I personally do not want to be kept alive by artificial means. Now that doesn’t mean that I don’t want them to try to revive me. So hubby and I have both agreed that we will use any means necessary to sustain life BUT if after 3 days there is no prognosis of a reasonable recovery then we will go ahead and allow the other to go peacefully. Now with that said, if I would linger beyond those 3 days with out artificial means—then it’s not my time, and that will be OK too, but no vent, and no feeding tube. No thanks.

[WellPreserved]

I have an Advanced Medical Directive and have listed a good friend as an agent. "Coma" can be terminal or not and a DNR is a little too general, i.e., yes, please do CPR if I have a heart attack!

AMD has my wishes for treatment for a terminal disease, what to do if I'm in a vegetative state, and organ donations. No to treatment to prolong my life if I'm in a vegetative state but yes to all the pain meds whether I need them or not. As far as treatment for a terminal disease, yes to treatment to prolong my life. If at some point I change my mind about that, I can change my AMD.

[Momto2boys973]

Well, my DH and kids k ow that I don’t want to be connected to anything to begin with. Because of our religious beliefs, once a person is hooked to a machine, pulling the plug is a complicated thing. Better not be connected to begin with, let nature happen. First, the emotional drain on my family to having me in a coma for years, I couldn’t do that to them. Years of their lives all about me, what’s happening to me, when will it be over, for good or bad, that’s not the life I want for them. If they were to lose me I want them to be able to have closure and move on with their lives. And second, the economic burden! No way I’ll have my kids paying astronomical medical bills to pretend I’m alive. I wouldn’t want to put my husband or my boys in the position of having to make that choice and the complications they may face.

[SisterSomeone]

I mean, not to rain on your parade, but for one thing you would absolutely not wake up after 10 years with no problem. There is biologically no chance of this happening. After a certain point the odds of waking up at all are statistically near zero, and on the off chance that you beat them you would wake up with severe cognitive and physical decline, as helpless as an infant, and you'd have to relearn everything, to the extent that it would even be possible to regain any meaningful function after so long. If that's still something you'd want for yourself, I respect that, but if your plan is "wake up in ten years and be fine", you are hoping for a fairytale.

Personally I wouldn't want to be kept alive if I wouldn't have any quality of life upon waking, my husband wouldn't want that for me either, and frankly, it's not up to him in the first place. I have an advanced medical care directive with my wishes outlined and I've named my best friend as my proxy. I also wouldn't want my family to have to live with the burden that they've discontinued my treatment or life support. The end of my life is my choice, agency, and responsibility.

[Slimshandy]

Really, why?

I had a cousin that got in a really bad car accident 30 years ago, so bad they told her parents she would never regain consciousness. They didn’t pull the plug. Three weeks later she woke up, and while she did have a really long way to go to be normal again, she had to relearn how to walk, talk, eat, everything…

But now 30 years later she’s a mother of three, has a masters degree and the only way you can tell she was in an accident is a slight speech difference, she holds her pen a little differently when she writes and if she’s in a two piece baiting suit you can see the scars. Other than that, she’s fantastic.

[WellPreserved]

Really, why?

I had a cousin that got in a really bad car accident 30 years ago, so bad they told her parents she would never regain consciousness. They didn’t pull the plug. Three weeks later she woke up, and while she did have a really long way to go to be normal again, she had to relearn how to walk, talk, eat, everything…

But now 30 years later she’s a mother of three, has a masters degree and the only way you can tell she was in an accident is a slight speech difference, she holds her pen a little differently when she writes and if she’s in a two piece baiting suit you can see the scars. Other than that, she’s fantastic.

I think the decision regarding one’s child is often different from decision regarding oneself. Most people saying that they would “pull the plug” have indicated that they wouldn’t want to be an emotional of financial burden on their families. That changes when talking about your kids.

[mater-three]

It depends on the prognosis.