With a loving wife and two young children, I would certainly prefer to live through a lifetime of suffering just to be there and see them thrive. Yes, I know that would change their lives, but not break them. Keep me around.
(oh, and I am insured for 10 times more than I could make on a lifetime of hard work. My death would mean total financial security for all of them. Still, I would want to live)
Most people who go on living in that condition do it with a great deal of support from their loved ones, plus great insurance. I have no insurance and only one loved one. It would place a terrible burdon on him, and I’d have to do a great deal of soul-searching to decide what to do. I’d never want to be a burden to him, but I also wouldn’t want him to feel responsible for my death. We’ve talked about this, and both agree that life isn’t worth living without “quality.” But if it actually happened, I have no idea what we would decide. But I know it would be *our *decision.
I wouldn’t personally say I applaud the choice. I feel “respect” is a more accurate phrase. I would also disagree with your statement up here. It is not a social decision. If my friend does not experience a rather remarkable reversal of fortunes, she is a sentient aware being trapped in a skull whose bodily machine is now useless in all ways to her aside from being a working power plant. That will take a heavy toll on her, one I can barely imagine.
I say barely because in September of 2000 I fell off of a ladder and broke my back. By pure luck my spinal cord was not affected. I’ve lots of other bad after-effects but I can wiggle my toes and for that I am grateful. I know the toll of being in pain 24/7 without relief. I do not know the toll of what she is enduring. ( it doesn’t involve pain right now, at least. ).
As I said in my OP, I suspect I might well go insane. However it robs the patient of quite a bit of self-determination to blame society instead of their medical condition as the influencing factor in their decision to live or die.
A quad has lost self-determination because they are physicall incapable of taking their own lives aside from starving to death and a forced feeding tube would stop even that action.
Again, it is not a social condition. The people we are discussing have lost everything below the neck. That is in all ways a medical condition and one that deserves its due.
jabiru, thank you for being that honest.
Seeing you like that might do them a lot more harm than knowing you’re no longer in pain.
I probably wouldn’t be able to survive it; my body is important to me, and not being able to control it would be catastrophic.
I like to think that I would learn to deal and live a decent life.
I don’t know whether to recommend the film The Sea Inside (El Mar Adentro) or warn you away from it.
If I could communicate well in some form or another, I could still do my work, I could still guide my daughter through life, and I could still maintain the strong connection I have with my husband. It would take a huge amount of adjustment to accept my new situation, obviously, but seeing as how most of my strengths are in my brain, I think I would eventually adjust ok.
I wouldn’t mind living with paralysis. I would get stoned all day and watch a lot of tv, read books, talk to friends, etc. It wouldn’t be too bad especially if I had someone to help me. Then I could continue my hobby of learning mathematics. Of course you have to keep in mind that I’m a very lazy person and in general I don’t move much anyways…
I’d have to learn to type with my mouth, and the diapers would suck, but heck, so long as I can talk the ears off people’s heads I’m fine.
Last year, Gramps had a stroke that affected mostly his right side but also the left. Doctors said we should start thinking about a wheelchair and didn’t expect him to be able to use the right hand again. Now he can dance (not the twist, eh, slow and easy does it); he can write, button and unbutton with either hand… his fine motor control is better with the left, though. His neurologist says if he ever figures out what is it Gramps has, we should distill and sell it. He also once healed a broken neck in less than a month (being over 80yo).
My SiL’s father has ALS. He can barely talk any more, or even swallow. Two weeks ago, someone made SiL a gift of fresh asparagus; Mom showed them how to cook them. They made the “miracle” of getting SiL’sDad to be able to eat the chopped up tips. Giving him more varied food than what he’d been receiving has prompted a partial recovery. Watching his 18mo grandson brings a smile to his face every time.
zagloba, it’s Mar adentro, without the El. Means “out at sea,” as well as being literally translatable as “the sea inside”. The title plays with the double meaning of being a sailor (someone who has the sea inside) and of the accident happening out at sea.
Me, I’d live. I’m already pretty sedentary, and in any case you can go out right now and purchase a crude cybernetic interface that’s mostly noninvasive.
The joys in my life have nothing to do with walking, or running, or skipping, or even touching, and have everything to do with imagining, creating, designing, composing, and sometimes eating. Plus, even if it takes me half an hour to set one note in Soundforge, well, I’d be quadrapalegic so people would instantly want to listen to it! Gotta look on the bright side of things.
As an aside note - considering that most Dopers definitely don’t believe in life after death, it surprises me how few of them have a desire to live-at-all-cost, especially since I do and believe in it definitely.
Sad story Cartooniverse, best wishes to your friend in her circumstances.
I know what you mean, even if it was from a wheelchair, I’d still want to watch my little girl growing up and hear her tell me what she’s been up to day to day.
That’s saying that knowing that it would be such a bloody hell to have a dead weight of a body needing someone else to clean it and the chances that I might die of something as stupid as a bed sore.
Someone my parents met in a pub in Cork told them, as he drank his large inheritance away, that he didn’t care about his liver or the rest of his body, as long as his mind was in good shape. The damage the alcohol was probably doing to his brain didn’t seem to worry him, and he did tell them a silly Dan Dare joke too.
I think I could deal with it for a while but, having seen The Sea Inside, I think I’d want to be able to decide when I’d had enough and wanted to be put out of everyone’s misery.
Anyone who caught *Million Dollar Baby * last night would probably side with the Right To Die mindset. I wouldn’t want to go on. No way.
I think what a lot of people object to is the infantilization that often accompanies this.
“I want to get stoned. Roll me a joint.”
“No, drugs are illegal. You can’t have that.”
“Turn on Jerry Springer.”
“No, that will rot your brain.”
“OK, I will read. Would you get me that book off the top shelf?”
“I’m on my break.”
IYSWIM. It doesn’t have to happen all the time to take the heart out of one.
A friend of ours lived like this for several years, or as long as she could stand it. Then she committed suicide by not eating.
I couldn’t think of a reason to talk her out of it.
Regards,
Shodan
That’s why I would get a helper monkey.
Makes sense, but can you teach one to roll a joint? What if the trainer refuses to do so?
Regards,
Shodan
As I said, I was not advocating hard for death. I was asking where folks stood. I hope she doesn’t die unless she decides she wants to. Then I dunno what we will all do.
A friend mentioned Million Dollar Baby yesterday. My friend is not on a respirator, which would make her wish, were she to arrive at it, more complex.
This film made it clear for me - help me die, please. For better or worse, my somatic experience is primary and essential for me. I’m sure there are plenty of people who can find fulfillment elsewhere, but I know that for me I either can’t or don’t want to.
I highly recommend the film, by the way, whatever your stripe.
Would you want to die? or do whatever it takes to walk again? I had to think long an hard about it. I had been an Army Ranger jumping out of perfectly good airplanes just to get to work.
When my parachute failed things changed.
The doctors told me I was a quadriplegic (four limbs paralyzed) and that it would get worse. “Get used to it” they suggested.
Fortunately for me I had a relationship with God already. Many people begin their relationship with God when they just get into a situation like this. I knew the worst thing that would happen to me is that I would die and go to heaven so risking my life hunting terrorists was okay.
I never imagined I would survive and be paralyzed. I decided I would do whatever it takes to walk again.
I was lucky and blessed to find my injury was ‘incomplete’ (the spinal cord was not severed) and I began to walk within a month of being hospitalized.
It is now over twenty years later and I still have issues from the accident. I have some days I can not walk and others I am is so much pain I can not get out of bed. I take methadone, robaxin, and neproxin for pain, muscle relaxation and anti inflammatory effects.
I am glad I chose to live. I have a wife and two kids and we do pretty well financially (all the bills are paid). I have a mission at the lab to give the gift of walking so it keeps me going. Some days I am so excited about the LIFESUIT robotic exoskeleton I can not sleep at night.
For anyone who is paralyzed or has a family member or friend that has been recently paralyzed it is VERY important that you know most people are depressed the first four months and if they say the want to die it is usually the depression talking not reality. If you love them you will make sure they have to wait until five to six months after the paralysis before they decide.