This. I have written out my desires on what intervention I want and what I do not want. That and a bottle of “last resort” tablets and I’m pretty comfortable for when the time comes.
Flyer is correct – prostate cancer screening has been found to be of minimal benefit and a lot of unneeded costs. Generally prostate cancer is slow-moving, and, as the chief medical officer at my company said, “Something else will kill you long before prostate cancer.” For reference, none of the docs I work with have that testing.
So what do you think of the effectiveness of those tabs? My wife and I recently had a couple of procedures where doctors prescribed a bunch more painkillers than we needed. We thought about filling them and keeping them in the freezer, but as neither of us are ill and both are in our 50s, I wasn’t sure how long they would keep.
For most of my adult life I’ve kept a lethal amount of prescription medication on hand for a worst case scenario. The bottle is dated and I replace with new product when the old expires.
They are not just “painkillers” but rather medications that a physician has counseled me he would take in a situation where he wanted to go to sleep and not wake up.
Man, this is depressing.
I’m not so sure pneumonia is a mercy. I recently watched my grandfather succumb to it. For 4 weeks he lingered, gasping desperately for every breath. No doubt old age has its many miseries, but not being able to breathe is the worst thing I can imagine.
It can be a mercy if it is of rapid onset in a debilitated person. But you are right, more often than not, expiring of slowly worsening respiratory failure is one of the absolute least pleasant ways to go.
You said (in part)
I didn’t equate this with ignoring a possible problem. Many men truly ignore their prostate until something (symptom, feeling, spousal insistence, physician recommendation, etc.) causes them to undergo a screening test, the commonest of which is PSA. Then, subsequent to their PSA, some men choose benign neglect as their treatment option. I took your statement to mean that you had made such a decision about prostate options, subsequent to having a concerning PSA. I would not characterize that as ignoring your prostate. That’s the reason I offered biopsy as the next diagnostic step. I wouldn’t have suggested biopsy as the first step for someone who had zero indication of possible prostate problems.
If you truly have no indication at all and were just mulling “100 ways to die”, then you fit the profile of men who probably don’t need screening. It is indeed true that most men will die with prostate cancer rather than from prostate cancer, and false positives do lead to detrimental results. But not all positives are false, and I was suggesting that getting confirmation or contradiction of that indication was preferable to considering suicide by disease as the alternative.
I’m not sure what you meant here, but in deference to this forum I’ll try not to take offense.
I was in a high risk group and already had significant symptoms well beyond a spiking PSA. Apparently that isn’t the OP’s situation. I’m glad for him, and I’m still troubled that he considers pneumonia a possible alternative to end-of-life care.
My dad used to say that people used to say it. I’m not sure that counts as within living memory, though. He died more than ten years ago. Within living hearsay, maybe?
We have now, yet again, demonstrated that Americans have a “Maintain pulse as long as humanly possible” mindset.
I prefer to think of “maintaining life” as opposed to “maintaining pulse”.
Is the “pulse” theory common in other countries? Is this an East/West distinction?
p.s. - for those who cannot deal with their own mortality: please find another thread. I’d like this one to be about the reality of death. Some of us are going to die.
I oversee a hospice. I deal with mortality all the time. I’m just giving you some objective info that you seemed to be asking for.
Is there another option I was unaware of?
That was a small dig at the “I’m never going to die! Modern Medicine will keep me alive forever!” mindset exhibited above.
My dad had pneumonia a few years ago and ended up in the hospital. It wasn’t pretty. His fever was so high he doesn’t even remember us calling 911 and the ambulance ride. He probably lost a third of his body weight, he ended up in the ICU, and had to be on an IV and have surgery to check out his lungs. (My dad’s stubborn and kept insisting it was just a bad cold until he HAD to be taken to the hospital. BTW, this happened a year PRIOR to this as well!)
Dude, even if you aren’t afraid of dying, at least avoid ways of dying in agony.
I just read through the thread and don’t see that mindset exhibited anywhere. Are you reading into people’s posts?
Yeah, I think you might be reading a little too much there.
Dying of pneumonia sucks. Weeks and weeks of gasping for your last breath isn’t so merciful.
Likewise, early avoidance of cancer is smart. Wouldn’t you feel dumb sitting there with a painful prostate the size of a grapefruit while you’re waiting for that case of pneumonia to finish you off?
It’s true that our medical system will prop you up far longer than necessary, and they won’t even tell you when it’s a good time to die with dignity. But that doesn’t mean that pneumonia is your friend or prostate checks are your foe. If you’ve already decided you don’t want to age another year, there are peaceful ways you can take care of that. Don’t wait for some painful awful thing to do it for you.
Did you miss the part about prostate screening for everybody?
And submitting to all the snipping and poking Modern Medicine Dictates?
Sounds much like “this is how you avoid Death!”.
Um, no. Just No. Blind devotion to (Great God) “Medicine” is not healthy.
My topic is the philosophical question of actively precluding options which were/are seen as beneficial for some people.
What if, after precluding a disease, we become one of those for whom it is/was a blessing?
A variant of “be careful what you wish for”.
And yes, I do have ways of offing myself if I see things going too far downhill.
I am not counting on pneumonia (or any other disease) to kill me. I can do that with great certainty.
If we don’t want to discuss “be careful of what you wish for”, I have another:
You develop a debilitating, incurable, progressive disease (see: George Eastman). You know that, very soon, you will no longer be able to move enough to kill yourself. Soon, you will be at the tender mercies of a system (hypothetical, OK?) which makes money by keeping your pulse going - even if you are in constant pain and have a negative 3 on a 1-to-10 Quality of Life Scale.
You know that, in 3 more months at most you will no longer be able to lift the revolver, open a pill bottle, or even find a razor blade.
Do you wait, or do you off yourself while you still can?
If we can’t get past prostate or how nasty pneumonia is for otherwise healthy people, we can discuss time of exit.
I’d rather discuss the “Precluding Something Which You May Yet Want*”.
-
- or at least “From Which You Would Derive Benefit”.
This is a legit question, but it is a different question than whether you should refuse the screening and treatment that could keep your disease from getting that far.
Why yes, it IS a different question!
And, we have now heard from medical experts that my decision re prostate is actually a valid, rational decision.
Please try to keep up.
The class is no longer discussing prostate screening and/or treatment.
Oh: Correction. The Chemo took out his liver, not kidneys.
A sad end to a bright and (almost annoyingly) cheerful person.
But hey! He went for the recommended medical treatment!