My experiences with death have paralleled Benjammin's. But my favorite quote is from Emily Dickinson.

Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me.

Kinda sums it up.

A story with a moral that applies:

I volunteer with my town's ambulance service. Last night I was toned out for a "man not breathing." When we arrived, we determined that the patient was a 90-year old man in cardiac arrest and that he had been down for probably 6-8 minutes.

We began our invasive and, quite frankly, violent CPR and ACLS protocols, only to have the patient's daughter tell us "No, he doesn't want all that." We asked her if he had an advanced directive or DNR, and she said yes. We asked to see the DNR, and it could not be found, despite assurances from the daughter and the home health aid that he had one.

Our protocols and state law are clear: in the absence of a valid written DNR in hand, you go to work, which is what we did.

Moral of the story: Even if you do all of the advanced planning in the world, if the documents are not readily available, they are useless. NY State recommends taping them to the refrigerator door in the kitchen.

The patient was pronounced dead shortly after we arrived at the hospital, despite our best efforts to revive him. If he really did have a DNR, I feel bad about what we put him through, but in a litigious society these rules are absolute. I'd also much rather take the risk of resuscitating someone who doesn't want it, than not working someone who wanted it. Please don't judge me on the decision.

Thank you very much for this post, it's good information to know!

-Blast

Way things are these days, I think I should get a "PDR" (Please-Do-Resuscitate)

I can't see how CPR or defib will hurt me if I'm already dead. I imagine it's not pretty to watch, but my funeral will be a real tear-jerker too.

I already told my wife "Honey, if I am ever thought to be brain-dead, only being kept alive by machines, I don't want you to have to make the hard decision to pull the plug. So I'm telling you now: don't pull the plug."

I think the problem with CPR is that it's possible the patient remains aware enough of what's happening to them that it is pure torture. With the odds against being successfully rescuitated, that means your last few moments on earth are going to be likely the most unpleasant you will know. I have no fear of death, but I am not looking forwawrd to dying for this very reason. I would much rather someone just threw a switch and the lights just went out, or something like that, to laying naked strapped into a cold undersized gurney with someone plunging needles into my chest while another one is getting ready to electrocute me, while I am struggling to breathe, can hardly move, and my insides are on fire.

I had a friend who died of a stroke. It took him two weeks, and it was awful. His blood pressure went ballistic, and he would go from groaning loudly to convulsions and constant screaming. The only other time I saw someone suffering like that was when a burn victim was getting their wounds ablated.

For all our knowledge, much of modern medicine is still akin to medieval torture.

How many real-life survival stories have we read where the survivor was in a state of pure torture with all the odds against them? I don't know of any of those people that later said "I wish didn't make it, I wish I hadn't hung on."

Yes, I think in the vast majority of cases, life is worth suffering through the process of rescucitation. What sucks is to have gone through it and died anyways, remaining aware to the end.

If mankind manages to stick around long enough, I expect that someday we will come up with ways of minimizing the suffering associated with dying so that dignity and comfort can be preserved.

Heroin. Reputedly, it has far fewer adverse side effects than Morphine, especially for longer-term, higher-dose use, as many terminally ill patients require. Too bad it's only available to junkies. High-dose Morphine is no picnic, and pain, generally, is actually one of the most under-treated syndromes in medicine.

The medicalization of death can be tragic. Some hospice programs help, but others suck. I would rather die at home, or by my own hand if need be, than in a hospital.

Indeed!