by Roberta Ann Dove Lipinski

Created on: June 28, 2008

Absolutely not! We're born into this world alone and we are soon thrown into decision making. We have no choice but make decisions from choosing our education level, to who we decide to spend our life with, to where we decide where we are to live, or how we live, we decide what we will eat, etc, etc, etc. Decisions, decisions. That's life. So then why would family members believe they have the right to make the last decision of our life?

I work as an Intensive Care nurse and through the years I have watched & have listened to families struggle with the thoughts of their loved one dying. Family member's have their different reasons for keeping their 80 year old mother alive. I feel they are unaware the reason for keeping mama alive is a very selfish reason. They want mama to stay alive, due to guilt. When a person signs that paper stating "keep my 80 year old mama alive at all costs", they have no clue how much pain and anguish they have just placed on their dying mama. CPR is very hard on a healthy body, much less a sick body. So we bring mama back from where she was meant to go, Heaven. Now she is on a ventilator. She is unable to talk due to the ET tube. She has been stuck multiple times searching for a new vein to start another IV. The last IV has infiltrated. She has had her chest compressed during CPR. That must be very painful. I have personally fractured ribs of a very frail 80 year old mama. So mama now lives on the ventilator for about 1-2 weeks and then crashes again. Usually, this time mama stays where she is meant to go, Heaven. The family has a week or so to come to terms with their impending loss. So who really wins here? I feels the family won, simply because mama was kept alive for them to deal. Mama was kept alive for them, not mama. There was no benefit for mama.

OK, so it's not 80 year old mama were making the last decision of our loved ones life for. So now its my 35 year old daughter who has multiple times told me and others of her last decision of her life as not to go on life support, no matter what. And she has not signed that very important paper stating her decision. Do I honor my daughters decision, or do I override it? Do I allow MY feeling of loss and probably guilt of real or unreal issues, take my daughter's last decision from her. If I love my daughter I will Honor my daughter's decision. No matter how terribly hard this will be. I will not put ME first. My daughter will be honored!

No family member has the right to make our last decision of our life for us!

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