5 year old - heaven vs hospital (sensitive)

[LadyShirazz]

Just wondered what MNers were making of this, very sad, story.

www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/juliana-snow-heaven-hospital_563049a0e4b0c66bae5a2989

Summary: Very ill 5 year old child, who will die of her condition sooner or later, is given the choice between further, painful hospital treatment to prolong life or "heaven" by her Christian parents.

I'm an atheist but torn on this one.

She's dead either way. Why not let her last moments be peaceful ones where she's not screaming because of a painful procedure?

Does a small child have the ability to give informed consent? Of course not. But it's not like they're letting her pick between dying and receiving a life saving treatment. The parents have already chosen to let her go peacefully with her family in familiar surroundings. They're simply allowing her to be part of that decision process so she can understand what's going to happen to her.

It's heartbreaking either way. No parent should have to make this choice.

I am an atheist too and I really don't get your discomfort. This child is going to die and her parents are doing their best to support and comfort their daughter at an incredibly difficult time for their whole family. Why is it so shocking that Christians would talk about heaven with their dying child? The choice here is painful and stressful prolonged life or a less painful and less stressful time before death.

I can not imagine the hell that these parents and their child are going through and they are acting with compassion and love, they have my admiration and deepest sympathy.

They're Christian, they believe that once dead in this life they will have eternal life with Jesus, which they would have brought their child up to believe also. So those are the two options in their eyes, my heart goes out to this family and pray that they find peace and know Jesus's love at such a hard time xxx

my only question is how this made it into a newspaper article. Ultimately, this isn't a choice between dying and not dying. This little girl is going to die regardless of what treatment she has. nothing anyone can do will stop that from happening. But what they can do is ease her potential fear. What would people rather happen? That they tell her she has to go through some more treatments but that when she dies nothing will happen - that it will just be a black nothingness and life will end there?

The truth is that when this little girl dies she will be in a place where she is no longer in pain. Whether that be heaven or nothing is irrelevant really when you think about it, because either way she can go with the belief that she is going to a happy place. If heaven is real (and I believe it is) then she will be in a happy place. If it isn't, she won't be in pain, and she won't know that heaven wasn't real because she'll be dead. But she'll still be out of pain.

I imagine that the parents would be getting far more criticism if they chose to continue the treatments and prayed to God for a miracle....

Oh Elsa words fail me. I can't even begin to imagine what you went through and are probably still going through. I admire the grace with which you wrote your post.
My DD, now 7, would not have understood why that was happening to her, when she was 5, but she is a healthy child who has never had to face up to living with a terminal illness. Healthy kids live so much in the present and even the most innocuous of illnesses makes them frightened and miserable, at times. Imagine something terminal. Imagine explaining that one. I think young children who have a serious condition can also have an uncanny sense of what is wrong with them. They understand more than we realise.
However, that doesn't mean we shouldn't protect them from fear of pain and death. Death, in particular, can be a very frightening and strange notion to process at that age.Why make it worse for this poor child?

Such a sad story. I can understand anyone who chooses to alleviate the fears of a young person with heaven or the afterlife. In my view, giving a child comfort during such a horrible period might be the only bit of peace that anyone takes away from it.

From what i've read his child has an undiagnosed NMD, it COULD be a CMT variant - but could also be something else. Whatever the diagnosis it is LIFE LIMITING not TERMINAL - she can still have a life, just not one her parents wanted for her. If she was close to death, i would happily agree with her parents, but as the Mum of a young adult with an NMD i think this is way too early to decide. She has a life still to live! Yes machines will be keeping her alive but everybody at some point will need intervention, it is not a reason to stop living. Julianna will (probably) get a chest infection, IV antibiotics and some CPT will probably get rid of it, yet they are letting her refuse simple treatment. If it was a treatment that caused absolute agony, and sickness with no decent outcome - then OK, something to consider - at that time. My dd hates CPT - 30 mins x3 per day - but she/i would not choose death over simple treatments, she still has a life to live! Check out Dear Julianna on facebook. Adults LIVING with an NMD...

It could be argued that Julianna is a candidate for euthansia. (Even if there is no heaven.) Would we allow an animal to live like this? In Belgium doctors could ensure that a child like Julianna had a painfree digitified death.

I can't see Julianna or her family wanting suicide as they are christians. I don't think that refusing life saving treatment is unreasonable either. People have different beliefs/ ideas and want different choices. There is no right or wrong.

Not RTFT but wanted to add something I saw some years ago.

A little girl...probably about 11, had cancer. It was successfully, if brutally, treated but it came back. She had tumours everywhere and although the doctors could prolong her life with Chemo etc, her parents decided against it. The previous treatment had been so hard on her, she had be isolated, missed her siblings, missed playing out and having fun and hated what the treatment did to her. It would probably have bought her months rather than years.

Her mother was asked if she had told her DD and she said no. She said that it was a decision that no 11 year old should have to make and that although it broke her heart knowing that she was deciding that her DD's life was going to end sooner, she was a mother and part of that job is making tough decisions so your kids dont have to.

I cried and cried watching it, but the little girl was so happy playing on the beach, far happier than she would have been spending her remaining time on a drip in a hospital bed. She died a few months later, but I am sure that the wonderful times they had before she died were a comfort to her parents. I believe that the mother was right, she did the hardest thing she will ever have to do, in order that her daughter didnt have to deal with "hospital or death". For that reason I think that these parents are very very wrong.

What a terrible decision to have to make. to anyone who has ever been anywhere near such events. Life is fucking hard. I can't judge such people any which way they choose to jump and don't think anyone else should either. As ReallyTired says, there is no right or wrong choice there, except for having to make the choice.