They're better off dead... AIBU?

[CupcakeOdssey]

Not sure if I'm being funny here or what.

How you feel if this was said to you?

One of my close family members has cancer that has spread all over, they are on palliative care and taken it badly.
They had a heart attack and was resuscitated by hospital but now they've said they've signed a DNR as they're to weak to cope with that again.

I was telling one of my in laws about said family member and they said "why did they resuscitate them for? That was stupid they are better off dead!"

How would you take that? I'm quite shocked and a bit hurt by their comment.

I personally would not want to be resuscitated in that situation . I find it incredible and sad that they put people through this if they are terminal. So no I would not be offended by what was said . It could have been said with more compassion though.

I'm sorry you're going through this op, and think that your IL should have not made the comment. I do agree with them though.

I had to watch my mother slowly wind down with end stage cancer. My aunt and I sat there watching her (she was completely nonresponsive then) and commented on how we'd gladly have put a pillow over her face if it wouldn't have got us arrested. It's such a cruel process.

She wasn't wrong but decency means keeping these thoughts to yourself. Death can be a merciful release and I feel sure that those of us who are able to think about our own clog-popping would like a painless, peaceful departure. A good death.

No. But I nursed my mum through terminal cancer and watched her hang on to every last moment of life and then die peacefully on morphine. Then 20 years my dad fighting hard to live too. To be perfectly honest, in both cases the living (ie me and the family) would have benefitted had their deaths been quicker as our distress was prolonged. So, perhaps I am biased because my double experience of terminal illness has involved people who absolutely would not have thought they'd be better off dead. Just as yours is biased in the other direction. Perhaps more so, as you're projecting your own experience onto the OPs relative who the OP states did not want to die.

Well they don’t really if they’ve now agreed a DNR. It sounds like the person sadly has realised it is sometimes better not to fight against the inevitable.
Resuscitation can be brutal especially if the person is already weak. If I was receiving palliative care I wouldn’t want resuscitation tbh

Just so incredibly insensitive. I have been in the position of having a parent with a DNR, it is very personal and a comment like that would really have hurt me (and a few were made by by exMIL so I do kind of know how it feels).

But people get pressured into signing DNRs. Or even have them put in place without their knowledge, as happened to my father (no dementia, had all his marbles, hospital just did this without consultation.)

You can't assume everyone who has signed a DNR is reconciled to their own death.

So sorry to hear what's happening to your family member, OP. 💐

It's insensitive but unfortunately true, they sound very clumsy with their words, it's much kinder to let someone slip away especially when suffering from terminal cancer otherwise that person has suffer even longer, it's not a pleasant end at all.

It was true.

My honest opinion is that a lot of people are kept alive by 'artificial' means and endless hospital admissions when they could have a quieter, kinder and quicker passing at home, which would be my preference.

However, there are others who rage against the dying of the light and want those interventions: we're all different in our approach to the inevitability of death.

DNR is a kindness. I have seen a lot of people die with my previous role. And believe me, there are worse things than death. I would be looking to support your loved one and you, for them to have the ‘best’ death possible. Get them out of hospital if possible (they’ll need community resources/beds/commode/palliate care/meds/O2? Or some things thereof so once that’s in place, I’d work hard to discharge with the view that they were not coming back to hospital when they deteriorate. Very sorry that you are in this place and wish you much kindness.

A very insensitive way to put it but I wonder why, if the patient was so desperately ill, did they carry out resuscitation?

Same here.

Quality of life is so important - but then again, perhaps those few weeks that individual has left are beyond precious to them and their family. Perhaps they give them a chance to properly say goodbye .

It's not easy. But I would definitely have thought this just because personally I'd rather be dead than dragging on with something like cancer. Other people I know have fought it every inch of the way and treasured every minute of life remaining.

I don’t understand the replies seemingly saying that because the patient has agreed with it, they ‘want’ it. Just because it’s the right thing to do medically it doesn’t lessen just how insensitive it is for the in law to say, especially considering they sound like they’ve got form.

We had to do the same with my FIL last year and it’s just horrible, even though you know it’s the ‘best’ thing. We were so ‘lucky’ that FIL was able to pass away peacefully at home. I hope your relative gets to go peacefully and comfortably OP.

I'm sorry their blunt statement hurt you, and I'm so sorry your family member is going through this.

Saying that, they aren't wrong. Resuss is absolutely brutal for someone already extremely frail and ill. Having watched three close family members die to cancer, I would endorse a DNR as a kindness to someone in that position. Life at all costs is often a cruelty to the one enduring it.

It was a crass thing to say out loud, but we don’t let animals suffer the way that many end stage cancer patients suffer - my mum included.

I can only think that you have had the good fortune to not witness a loved one dying a bad cancer death. I have. Sometimes palliative care doesn’t work. Imagine that. Pain, hallucinations, terror, this isn’t an exaggeration.

Many people would actually be better off dead in the end stages.

My dog and best friend died within months of each other. My dog had the most peaceful, easy death. My friend had the most horrendous suffering for 6 weeks, in a wonderful hospice, but they couldn’t stop the fear and pain .

Having nursed my mother to the end and watched her suffer the agony of the cancer shatter her bones one by one, I'd probably agree. I wouldn't let an animal suffer the way my mum did.

Signing a DNR is to record your wishes not to be resuscitated, and will be respected. The actual decision about whether or not to resuscitate is a medical one, made the doctor in charge. If there is no DNR in place the doctor will still decide what is in the best interests of the patient. Very often this will be to not resuscitate, hard as that may be for family.

I've already answered this. I've lost a parent to cancer. Luckily for her it wasn't the type of death you describe and right up until she could no longer speak (and went into coma then death) she said she did not want to die. I'm sorry for everyone's loss, but we can't extrapolate from our own experience that everyone else's is the same. I'm not saying every terminally ill person is better off alive, just objecting to the reverse view from many on here who believe they are always better off dead, to the point its ok to believe that about a stranger. It really isnt. Its arrogant and distasteful in the extreme. The OPs relative did not wish to die. They saw value in the remainder of their own life and no one should suggest otherwise.

As awful as this is going to sound, dying at home I don’t think is all it’s cracked up to be. A good friend wanted to go home to die, she did and I think the pain would been better managed in a hospice. It ended up being quite a violent death oppose to slipping away.

They probably shouldn't have said it out loud, but unfortunately I can see why they thought it.