Socialized Medicine - If you can't cure 'em, kill 'em.

[wgrr]

Originally Posted by mpholland

My stepmother is an RN at a nursing home near here. I don't visit her at work...the place just smells of death. I remember watching what she had to go through as my dad died from the outside in from ALS. He was in his mid 60's. I got to witness my mother go through my stepfather dying from emphysema and lung cancer. When the chemo and radiation did nothing but break up the cancer and spread it through the rest of his body and into his brain until the emphysema and pneumonia decided to bless him with congestive heart failure. He was in his early 50's. My mother was an LPN and loved working in the Alzheimer/dementia ward. She loved it so much she took dementia patients into her home after she retired. Now mom just got diagnosed with lung cancer last month and we get to go through that with her. I get to selfishly mourn the fact that she won't be around for me any longer soon, but she will be the one really "going through" shit. She has already told the docs to piss off, she won't be a guinea pig for them. She has already made it perfectly clear that nobody is to do anything except to keep her as pain free as possible until she goes. If any of them at any time would have been able to just "GO" instead of having to endure what they went through I would have done anything in my power to make it happen. So I just have two words for you Whell.

Fuck you!

I am very sorry to here about you mother. It is never easy to watch the one who gave you life go through the pain of a serious disease. I wish the best for her and you.

I just lost my brother in law to lung cancer. Your mother is correct. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. A tumour was discovered in his lungs during a routine physical. Turned out it was inoperable but was small. His mother and sisters encouraged him to go through the chemo treatment. Every three weeks his blood had to be replaced. Typing whole blood is very hard to do. They messed the blood typing up. Jimmy died in a few hours when his blood clotted in his body. He was 60 years old and probably would have lived many more years without treatment.