To me it depends on what family member. If I’m growing old with a partner and he needed that type of care, or I’d expect to handle that. I think my sister and I would each step up for the other one. Or if I got hit by a bus and was in a body cast and my mom came to take care of me I think I could handle that. But I’d absolutely rather a stranger did it for me, rather than my son.
What do people mean by “pulling the plug”? Usually, the patient is in a limbo state. You can remove the ventilator, and the tube feeding, and then the patient may die right away or they may suffer for days or weeks. Often, family members are enraged when the parent doesn’t die fast enough. Sorry, but euthanasia isn’t legal here.
I’ve been an ICU nurse for 17 years now, and rarely does “pulling the plug”, like taking the patient off the ventilator, result in a quick death. And then the family is rightfully angry because their loved one doesn’t just die. They have to wait and watch.
My mom died from ALS, and it came to a time when I had to put her on the commode and wipe her ass. I have wiped thousands of asses, I have been puked on, bled on, battered by confused patients, and have had every body fluid on me at one time or another. I have prepared hundreds of dead people to be presentable enough for their families to look at them.
When my mom died, I could not look at her or go in the room. I freaked out.
Wiping my mom’s ass was horrifying to me. She was dying. My mom. And every day I feared she would ask me to euthanize her, which any loving and responsible pet owner would do. But I was so afraid she would ask me to do that because I would have done it. She didn’t ask but I feel guilty for not killing her because she suffered so much. It was awful.
Instead she suffocated to death in agony. Alone. She couldn’t breathe, and her mind was intact to the last minute.
There was no plug to pull. There rarely is. It’s always murky. If we decide to take dad off the ventilator he might die in minutes or hours or days. That’s how my dad died. And everyone sits and waits and watching someone you love suffer like that is unbearable, but you have to watch it.
Although I’m an ICU nurse, or because I am, I would never ever want to be kept alive via the methods I inflict on my patients every day. It’s their choice and I respect and abide by that.
But if you have to choose between a family member or a health care worker to wipe your ass, please spare your loved ones that torture. Your family is suffering enough. Healthcare workers wipe ass a hundred times a day. It is part of the job, and like i tell my patients, “if you have something i haven’t seen before, i will pay you to see it”.
As an RN, having to wipe my mom’s ass was devastating. Don’t do that to the people you love. The nurses and aides won’t blink no matter how messy it is. Your family shouldn’t have to endure that.
You have my deepest sympathy. Been there.
Yes, if either of my parents were incontinent, I would have no problem changing their depends. It is no different than changing my kids’ diapers. I’m certainly not afraid of such messes.
What’s different is when a loved one is dying. Then it’s all you can do is to keep yourself going. Often, I spend more time helping families cope than I spend with the patient. Of course my patient is my first priority, but the family are my patients too, in a way.
And every time I think of my dad’s bedside vigil, and of my mom’s horrid end, so maybe I can help the ones who survive, because I understand.
I know. We kept vigil at my dads side before his death. It was long and drawn out and we are forever grateful for the professionals who helped us.
I wanted to paint a different picture for posters who said they’d want the ‘plug pulled’ if they needed to be changed. Sometimes being in the situation is not as dire and dreadful as it may sound.
I would absolutely care for an ailing family member, but I feel strongly that when I’m a burden instead of a contributor I’d like to go out to sea Eskimo style.
On further reflection, driving home from work this morning, I thought about some of the patients I’ve had and how different situations can be.
In some families, tending to their elders’ needs is expected. I’ve interacted with many who seem to really want to do the “dirty work” because they see it as a duty of love and respect. Some people are offended at the thought of a non-family member doing the dirty work.
But I wonder, how can you tell if a family member volunteers to do it because he/she wants to do it, or do they volunteer because they would feel guilty if they didn’t?
For example, let’s say I have a terminal disease. I ask my adult kids, “will you take care of me when I’m dying?” Some kids will say, “oh, hell no”, but I think most kids would say “of course!” Because most people would feel like assholes if they said no. Yet, actually doing that work will be emotionally horrid for them. And some kids will say “of course!” Because they really want to do it.
In the past, people simply took care of their elders, and those were the good old days to some people. To this day, I hear people say they want to have children so they’ll have someone to take care of them in their old age.
In the past, parents could pretty much expect that some or all of their children would die young, too. I don’t think caring for a dying parent or a dying child made anyone happy. It was something they had to do because there was no other option.
I’m pretty sure if I asked my children if they would wipe my ass and do all the other stuff that needs to be done while I die slowly, they’d say yes. But it would not be a happy decision and I would never even ask.
thank you for your thoughtful response
If it were me I’d ask for the check. I personally would not want a relative dealing with that on a regular basis. A health care worker doesn’t add much to the equation.
Well I already wear a diaper (nappy round hereabouts) but I manage to deal with it just fine. If I end up in state where I cannot I think I would prefer non family to do it.