Reply #212: There may be a component of guilt, of wishing she could have [View All]

[Warpy]

a few wasted years back, but as a nurse, I can't make that leap.

I've seen too many devoted family members act just like that, swearing every twitch, every groan is an attempt to communicate and if they just wait a few more weeks, their family member will come back to them. I've seen this with parents, children, siblings, and spouses. Most of the time, they come around and realize that the situation is grave and it isn't going to improve; a few cling to false hope as long as the patient is breathing, with or without a mechanical assist.

What has happened to that particular family is that the false hope became a lifestyle. Everything is centered around their daughter now. Remove her from the picture, they'll be left with nothing. I imagine it's a pretty terrifying prospect for them.

However, compassion for her parents only goes so far, certainly not to force feeding a nearly dead woman who has no hope of anything but a nursing home, a dirty diaper, and food she can't taste because it's going through a tube. Even if she were as responsive as her parents seem to think she is, I can't see condemning her to more of that. She's had 15 years of it already, and that should be sufficient experience of hell for anybody.