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Tuesday, March 29, 2005

 

Donuts and Terri

Spent the night on a Geri unit. The morning wake-up-and-feed-the-helpless routine was quite the zoo. Yet no one suggested that we park these people in a corner for a couple of weeks to quietly, or noisily, starve. I admit that I was a little surprised to find that no one had euthanized some of our patients while I was away. When I left the hospital I first went to use a free Dunkin' Donuts coupon given to me by the day RN (thanks again, A.)

On the way home I got into some interesting discussions. One was with a somewhat brain-damaged (2° MVA) but very functional friend who assured me that he is going to get 'DNR' tattooed over his sternum. That's my kind of Advanced Directive! Another talk was with a colleague who reminded me that this sort of thing goes on all the time without the fanfare.

Once home I brunched on the last of the leftover Kroger's rotisserie chicken (2 1/2 meals!), Diet Coke, salad, and some Purim goodies I missed yesterday. Even went out on the front step and smoked a cigar. Much more of a meal and a morning than Terri Schiavo's having.

I've looked at a bunch of the verbiage, imagery, and law surrounding this murder. I'm no slouch when it comes to patient assessment, chart reviews, and medico-legal matters. My friends, and my enemies, we have crossed the divide. We now have a precedent leading to overt euthanasia. Not 'assisted suicide'. Not 'enthusiastic over-administration' of narcotics. Not 'end-of-life' care. Euthanasia. When the day comes that a judge may declare your life valueless, when they bring your 'hot-shot' of morphine or phenobarb, it will be too late for you to say much. On that day, you may even discover that your Living Will/AD doesn't carry the weight that you thought it would.

Previous FASTAC 6 posts on Terri Schiavo:
terri-picking-up-speed-on-slippery
because-terris-case-is-too-important
observation-about-terri-schiavos-case
terris-death

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All original content on this blog copyright 2005-2012 by bblatt and FASTAC_6; all rights reserved. Original posts are the opinions of the authors only, and do not represent the policies or opinions of any Federal, State, or other private or corporate entity. Comments on posts are unedited, and do not represent the views of the blog authors; they may be deleted at any time by the blog authors