Be nice!
I've had several patients quit dialysis...
It's wrong to say they are NOT depressed (many are depressed, and change their mind--when the salt balance of your body is out of whack, depression is a major symptom, even in non dialysis patients)...
However, whether to quit dialysis or not depends on if you are dying, or if you are able to live a long time...
Many on dialysis have multiple problems (especially from Diabetes or collagen disease)and the long term prognosis is limited, so refusing extraordinary treatment is valid...(I am using Catholic ideas that stopping extraordinary treatments is morally ok)...
But beware: some people feel they "should" stop treatment to relieve family members of a burden. (one of the major reasons for so called "assisted suicide")...in a society that despises non productive people, this has many dangers.
Finally, why wasn't this man given the option of kidney transplant? On dialysis, people feel lousy all the time, but post transplant the quality of life is improved...The fact he was not transplanted makes me wonder if dialysis was merely prolonging his dying...
Koba;
Hey, just checkin' on you.
Still afloat? Making steerageway?
Any "bottles" with messages in them?
It happens sometimes.
Regards;
Just for clarification re. Boinkie's comment, the article notes that this man was on a list for transplant but that after several "near misses" he had still not received one. (Allocation processes are a whole 'nother rant.) I agree that a danger here is that because of chemical imbalances, the uncertainty of medical prognoses, the pressures (perceived or real) of considering other family members, the 'skew' of a society that considers some human life less worthy than other human life and a host of other things, there is no wholly rational process for making this kind of decision... which is one of the things that makes it at least troubling IMHO. Thanks for the view from the front lines, Boinkie.
> .in a society that despises non productive people, this has many dangers.
I take issue with this premise. Our society encourages people to place a value on productivity. This is not only rational and moral, but essential to the continued well-being of a socioeconomic system. It is the ever-increasing acceptability of personal indigence which is at the heart of many of our societies' current ills. I don't give a damned if you're totally unemployed, you can always be doing something to develop your worth to society. Hell, most people can carve wood, as well as afford the tools to do it, and if you get to be any good at that, you can damned sure make some good money by hand carving.
This expectation of production is not the same as despising the unproductive-by-reason-of-disability by any means.
One can also make a choice about the wealth consumed in order to prolong one's life and the effect of that on your heirs. While placing an exact dollar amount on such things is not a good idea, certainly one might expect to find better uses for, say, US$5 Million than to keep someone alive for an extra two months. This does not mean, by any means, one should be allowed to reject someone else's proper control over their own money to that end, only that a rational person may ask themselves if that is something they choose to do with the wealth society has given them, and have the answer they arrive at be "no".
Whose Life Is It Anyway?
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BTW, HERE is what happens when a society fails to discourage undisabled indigence.
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Commenting by HaloScan
