It is a sad tale, and unfortunately it isn't uncommon. Hospice may be an answer for some, it may not for others.
Hospices, and hospice nurses can not provide 'unlimited' morphine, even in the most painful of deaths. Aiding in a death is murder. All of the money you may pour into Long Term Care Insurance may not be worth a dime if your body decides to go fast--read your policy--as usually there is a pretty long period of 'non coverage' prior to qualifying for bennies.
When you or a loved one approaches death it is often a shock to find that hospitals, healthcare providers, insurance companies, and the world at large doesn't really give a damn that you are terminally suffering. They are all either watching their collective liability asses, or trying to enforce their views of life on you. Nobody likes a loser, and particularly one who poops in their own drawers.
I've seen some god awful suffering in hospices. All the drugs available (in approved doses) are often not enough to grant people a reasonable way out. Remember, the first thing that happens to you when you are dying is that they seem to take most of your rights away, and stop listening to you. HIPA be damned, you are screwed, and if you protest they will fill you full of chemical restraint drugs that whack you on the head and often give you a glimpse of hell.
We live in a Calvinist society that really deep down believes that people suffer because they deserve to. (If you had lived a good life then god would not be punishing you, would he? )Our laws, our religious leaders, and our politicians, even our doctors, are all on the band wagon to insure that sinners pay for their sins.....well at least until each of them, in turn, falls off and finds themselves in a bed with a diaper on and perhaps more pain than they ever knew was possible.
please pardon the disjointed rant, it hit a raw nerve that never seems to heal.
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