To not want to live to 95?

[Cuppasoupmonster]

Feeling a bit emotional tonight.

One of my granddads passed away from cancer in his mid 70s. He was fit and healthy, so the diagnosis shocked us all and it was a pretty awful couple of years watching him decline and pass away. However, he had many family and friends come to visit him, he stayed pretty mentally present until the end and his funeral was enormous - over a hundred people. He was well loved and well known in his local area. Most of his care was done by my grandma, his wife, and he died at home.

My other granddad passed away just after Christmas aged 95. He stayed in his house until he was 91 and way past being able to manage it, and his final years were spent between hospital and care facilities, worrying about my gran who has dementia and generally in pain. All bar one or two friends had long passed away, so few visitors, just his small family. He died in hospital fairly suddenly without any of us present 😢 his wife not there as it would’ve distressed her. His funeral was very small. He was such a proud man with such an interesting life and career, it makes me sad to think how few people were still alive to remember him at the end.

I don’t really know what I want from this thread, I guess it’s cathartic to write it down and cheaper than therapy! While illness and death is never pleasant, am I wrong to think that, in general, we’re actually making the end of our lives worse by living for too long?

Faded 95.. I have to go to bed.

Yanbu. My dh's nana is 96, I adore her. She's still able to live by herself, but has slowly, physically lost her independence over the last few years and is housebound. She looks so sad now. Her dh died approx 15 years ago and she's lonely. Mil is an only child and takes care of her needs, but it's a miserable existence. Not something I look forward to.

Yanbu - to some extent. Certainly I agree that the last 10 years are often miserable for those who live into their 90s and beyond. But my parents are in their late 70s and I don't think they are anywhere near ready to go. It's a good thing we can't choose when to go as the dilemma would be overwhelming.

This reminds me of going through a relatives address book with her when she was about 95, reading all the names out for her Xmas card list:

Bob &Jean? Dead
Doris? Dead
George & Elsie? Dead and only just dead
Joan? Might as well be dead

She was being tongue-in-cheek but the fact remained her husband, siblings, cousins, colleagues and all her mates were long gone. I definitely don’t want to get that old.

I think it was Jack Dee who, upon being advised to eat healthier and exercise more so he’d live ten years longer, replied something like “yeah but it’s the last ten years, when you’re just dribbling and pissing yourself”.

It's difficult. One side of my family has early onset dementia and die horribly in their 50s. The other side seem to last forever. My grandad is late 90s and doesn't appear to have changed much since his 70s and possibly before. He is less mobile, and he's had to adjust his friendship group as they've died off (fortunately he's in a very tight knit community so that's not a problem).

It very much depends which side I take after, and whether I have an adequate pension etc.

Not at all. I’m more sad for him. It’s the dignity thing too. Back in July one of the carers that came in to help him wash and dress was the great grand daughter of a family friend. Because we live in such a small place that’s always going to be a possibility and he’s embarrassed by it.

The way the gp system works here if you phone in the morning from half 8 until it’s not engaged and you try to get an appointment but usually there isn’t any left. I could ask for the duty gp to call me or my auntie back as we are down as his carers but all they will do is refer him back to the hospital. We’ve tried. I genuinely think the neurologist at the hospital just disagrees with my grandad and his beliefs so decides no. We tried to get a second opinion and he was sent fir assessment where they said he was depressed after the loss of my gran and the restrictions of covid and that it would pass. It’s like they feel he should be grateful to be alive and try to go in as long as possible. Like they can’t understand why someone of reasonable sound mind wouldn’t want to live. but that’s not my grandads beliefs

I became disabled in my 20s.

At times my mobility/ life has been like the elderly people discussed here.

But no one suggests euthanasia for 20 somethings.

Yes it's not a full life being stuck in front of the tv all day, struggling to wash or dress yourself. But it's a hell of a lot better than being dead.

Don't speak for others if you haven't walked in their shoes.

Members who wish to commit suicide must have sound judgement, as determined by the organization; be themselves able to bring about death; and submit a formal request including a letter explaining their wish to die and medical reports showing diagnosis and attempted treatment.

My parents and PILs are all in their 80s and are in varying states of health (both physically and mentally). The one who was most physically fit a year ago has declined dramatically. Ageing is hard

I strongly suspect that if at 80 you are well & active you won't feel like that.

It is all to do with health & social connection. I'm in my 40s and work hard at my fitness, I really hope I enjoy good health in my later decades to keep doing so. I know many retired colleagues who are doing amazing things, so active & well.

But so much of that is chance; I do my best to maximise the parts within my control & hope for the best.

It's ridiculous to decide a particular age denotes a certain fragility or inability to do something. I know quite a number of nonagenarians who are active, mentally agile & having a great life. We should aspire to that but also recognise that elements are beyond our control, as indeed they are for all of us, at any age.

You can't put an age to when life gets to be too much for you. If you were still, as my DMum is, living independently at home in her 90s, you wouldn't be rushing to end your life.

You will however have outlived many friends and your generation of the family. But that doesn't have to leave an unfillable void (unless surrounded by narrowminded youngsters who can't make friends across generations).

So yes YABU to put an age on it, or to assume that it will become unbearable.

But everyone wants life to be kind to them and death to come without fear or pain.

I think about this sometimes. You never know what’s going to happen or how your health may turn. But if I am still fit and healthy into old age I would like to be able to end my life in a legal, pain free way before I lose my independence.

I know of one or two who’ve made it to well over 90 with both their marbles and their mobility intact, but most people lose one or the other. If you don’t, I’m increasingly convinced that a lot of it is down to genes. Who doesn’t know someone who always did the right, healthy things, and died early anyway? And vice versa?

IMO too many people are kept alive just because it’s possible to do so, when their quality of life is very poor and it’d probably be kinder to let them go. But from all I’ve ever heard, it’s often family who insist on everything possible being done, and get very indignant/angry if medics suggest that it might be kinder to give palliative care and let Nature take its course.

My DF died of cancer in his early 70s - my DM went on to 97 - having had dementia for at least 15 years - she was in a most pitiful state for her last 5 or 6. She wasn’t ‘kept alive’ - we would not have wanted it and would have fought any suggestion of it - it was simply down to having the general constitution of a rhinoceros - she came from a generally long-lived family.

If I had to choose between an earlier death from illness and the fate my poor mother suffered, I know which I’d choose. Who wants to go on until your family cannot really grieve that you’re gone, because you have become a most pitiful shell of what you were, and they ‘lost’ you long ago? I know it’s a horrible cliche but my mother’s death really was a merciful release.

IMO, if we don’t want any ‘striving to keep alive’ in certain circumstances, then it’s up to all of us to make our wishes crystal clear in a Power of Attorney - there is space for you to add them. Dh and I have done this, and dds are in no doubt as to our wishes.

It's quality of life that matters.

This year we lost a relative at 90 and she did brilliantly until 85. When I was last able to see her in 2019 (Covid travel and health care restrictions) her energy and interest was fading and there was something that tripped mentally at 86-87 that went into decline. That was then accelerated by the isolation of shielding.

She spent much of her last year in and out of hospital and ending up in a care home and her last weeks were spent going no further than the chair next to her bed on a good day. She's have happily have died at any point in the last year. There was nothing inspiring to look forwards to through the pain of a failing body. On being told that her sibling had died her response was that they were lucky. Her body gave up a month or so later.

Fortunately family all agreed that the priority was care to make her comfortable not to prolong life, and we've mainly felt a relief at the end of her suffering. It was a well attended funeral and lovely to look back on happier dats when she was able to be herself.

A shock premature death is an awful form of grief where there's so much lost potential. I'm currently reeling from a very recent one and it's my third family bereavement this year. The ideal is to live out your potential, experience the normal life stages including retirement, younger generations. Have some loved ones including peers to mourn you and not end up lonely. I suppose some winding down is necessary to feel that completion of potential, but too long in to that where your sense of self is lost in pain, hopelessness, immobility, exhaustion and lonliness is superflous suffering.

It's not purely about age. On losing a very disabled relative at an arithmaticly young age, it was the same as losing a relative of the same state of health of double the age because it was the same state of acknowledging the completion of life. Losing him 10 years earlier when he enjoyed life would have been tragic, even 5 years earlier before he was so deeply lost in himself.

My naive grand plan is to live well, maximise my potential to live actively well into my mid 80s and when life gets too tediously sedate, have a short illness to accept the next stage. Past 80 I'm eating all the cake I can and pickling my liver!
My family has good genes for long life and an unfortunate tendency for arthritis. My knees and hips will probably be several decades younger than the rest of me 😂

Interestingly today I received an invitation this morning to get a pneumonia vaccination. If I didn’t know that it confers lifelong immunity and that pneumonia is often the old person’s friend, I might have had it. As it is I might be very grateful to get pneumonia one day so the answer is “No thanks”.

I agree wholeheartedly with you. This is a deeply disturbing, ableist thread.

It probably won't stop you getting pneumonia when you are on your last legs. It will be likely to stop you getting it when you are elderly, living at home independently, but have a chest infection during a cold winter.

I agree. But it is common thought that it is better to be dead than rely on carers. I have looked after people who thought that, they change their mind when they get to this stage and realise there can still be a lot of joy in life.

Oh is it really 🙄

@antelopevalley

I agree. But it is common thought that it is better to be dead than rely on carers. I have looked after people who thought that, they change their mind when they get to this stage and realise there can still be a lot of joy in life.

You're saying this to a disabled person. I don't wish to be dead, just so you know. And it's not better for me to be dead. I still have much to contribute to life and to those I love. (I'm very far from elderly.)

@Cuppasoupmonster

Oh is it really 🙄

Have you read some of the posts?

Nobody has said disabled or elderly people should be routinely euthanised. Why are people on here so dramatic?

So I’ve chosen 85 (maybe 90 depending on how life and finances hold out) but hope I have the guts to stop all my life-sustaining medication and take my chances. And I have an Advance Decision in place already.

I'd forgotten about Advance Decisions. They should send out information about them when you qualify for your pension.

Advance Decisions

Compassion in dying

I have zero intention of living that long. One reason I'm not too careful about what I eat and drink is because I don't see the point of eking out an ascetic life for an extra couple of decades. Happy to go in my seventies, which really doesn't leave me many more years and it's focusing my mind. I know there are about 12 things I still want to do in my life, but after that I'm ready to shuffle off and give someone else a bit more space on the planet.

If DC had children I might want to hang around longer and help out but can;t guarantee that.