My aunt Agnes died today. She had written a living will, and stated she wanted no heroic efforts to keep her alive. Her husband was to make any necessary choices if my aunt couldn’t. If he was unable to, my cousin was to make the choices. Failing both, my sister was a third choice.
Two days ago, my Agnes’s friend called my sister. In her opinion, my aunt was suffering unnecessarily, there was no hope she would survive without a ventilator, and my uncle had baled out on making a choice. He told the doctors he couldn’t decide something like that.
So my sister went up the Marshfield Clinic, and I went with her. My cousin flew in from California. We all sat down to talk to the docs yesterday. The previous day my aunt was conscious and aware, according to my cousin. Yesterday, however, she was not.
My aunt’s heart was functioning at about 10% of her normal capacity. The docs agreed she would not long survive once the ventilator was removed-- they expected somewhere between 2 hours and 2 days. Even if not removed, she probably wouldn’t have more than another month or 2.
And we all agreed to the call – take it off.
This is where my opinion diverged from everyone else’s. The decision was to take it off, and NOT tell her she probably would die in the next day or so. I told them I disagreed, we should tell her. My cousin said, “Why panic her?” I said, “If she’s alert enough to understand, it’s her call whether to have the ventilator put back on. If she’s not alert enough, then telling her won’t make any difference.”
It wasn’t my call. They did what they did, and I didn’t rat them out to my aunt, mainly because I was never sure she understood what we were saying. And I didn’t want to get into a fight with other family members in front of her.
She lived about 20 hours after life support was removed. At times she was conscious enough to ask for water, and she said some of our names. My cousin told her she was getting much stronger, and would be out of the hospital soon.
I was so angered I left within a half-hour of her death, and didn’t talk to any of the other family, except to my sister - to let her know not to expect me at my uncle’s house. I didn’t tell them how angry I was. When I was a kid, Agnes was the only adult (including our parents) who spoke to us kids as if we had brains and could carry a rational discussion. She never talked down to us.
I think we did her a disservice by not being truthful with her. Though as I say, I’m still not sure she would have understood it.