Skip to content

Comment on Me an' Algernon – grappling with (temporary) cognitive declineparent

Comments

Where I currently live, terminally ill nearing their end often fall in a pattern of eating and drinking less and less, to the point of having nothing (not even water). This process of dying takes 1-2 weeks(!). Longer if some liquid is still imbibed.

This is a common ending of a terminally ill process and apparently seen as humane. Though I think if anyone treated their dog like that, we'd report them for animal abuse.

I don't have good answers to most questions surrounding this topic. But I'd like to get to a point where people are treated as humanely as their pets in their final period. And I can't even tell you the current practice isn't, just that it does not at all feel that way to me.

Where I currently live, terminally ill nearing their end often fall in a pattern of eating and drinking less and less, to the point of having nothing (not even water). This process of dying takes 1-2 weeks(!). Longer if some liquid is still imbibed.

Even just getting to this point is usually a brutal period of pain. Then you have to die like that? It's frankly barbaric.

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.