Twenty some-odd years ago, my uncle died of kidney cancer. He spent months lying in bed at home, every now and then asking when the boys from the funeral parlor were coming to take him out. Eventually he was moved to hospice where I visited him a few times. He made his final goodbyes to me, at that point only able to move his head. A long month later, he died. As my father said, “We wouldn’t treat a dog that way.”
My father died this spring. After a decade of ill-health his bowel ruptured and he was in tremendous pain. Death was knocking. The surgeon said in the unlikely event he could survive surgery, the recovery would kill him. With no surgery, he would develop a massive infection and die. There was no surgery, that simply would have been cruel for my father and those who loved him. Instead, on a morphine drip, he lost consciousness. Periodically the pain brought him to the surface, thrashing and crying out. Then the dosage would be increased, until many days later he died. As my father said, “We wouldn’t treat a dog this way.”
Please vote yes on Question 2. Someday it will be you or someone you love in that bed.
ANNE O’CONNOR
Fitchburg
