I had to talk my late mother into turning my dad's vent off. This was made extremely more difficult after a woman whose husband had been transferred from a nursing home who'd been on a vent for a protracted amount of time encouraged her not to d/c his ventilator. It was one of the more difficult things I've had to do. Dad was 77 and up until an acute cardiac event, had been relatively healthy. But, in less intense times, all of us agreed that if we were unresponsive for 48 hours, the machines should be turned off. My mom finally relented, but it was an acutely stressful time, made vastly worse by a church lady.
I continue to marvel at the fact that these Christian tribes with their claimed belief in a promised immortality post death are the very people who are most afraid of that death and will do anything, sane or otherwise, to keep their alleged loved ones in a vegetative state indefinitely. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at the cruelty these Luddites are capable of inflicting, their blatant hypocrisy or the fact that all of that is lost upon them. However, I confess, I still find it startling.
bcnu,
Mikem
It's mourning in America again.