In article , Stephen Harding
wrote:

Cub Driver wrote:

Isn't that sodium pentathol? (I'm not sure about the spelling.) We
once put down a St Bernard who weighed almost as much as I do, and at
the time I marveled what an easy death that was.

I've done the "final visit to the vet" on several occasions. It's
the downside of the wonderful experience of owning a pet [dog].

The end comes so quickly and quietly, it really makes me wonder.
Is it "inhumane" to apply on humans? Would it really be "unethical"?

As opposed to often months of watching someone you care for die
with the aid of "advanced medicine".

Sometimes "ethical" and "humane" seem antagonistic.


It's a terribly difficult question. I did feel a deep emotional bond
with my last cat to die, who seemed to tell me when he still wanted to
go on -- and there were, indeed, treatment options for his bladder
cancer. He wound up not being euthanized but dying at home. Before he
died, he spent a long time in my arms, and I'd swear we agreed that it
was OK for him to go. To my surprise, as opposed to my other cat, be
chose not to die with me holding him. I had fallen asleep from sheer
exhaustion, but I (and my ex-wife) sat bolt awake at the same moment,
which probably was close to what we can reconstruct was the time of
death.

It was much more difficult with my mother, although there were
significant differenes. She had metastatic breast cancer in 1975, and,
while she was in active treatment, I wound up in role beyond the usual
surrogate responsibility -- a fair bit of the staff didn't tell her
things but would want me to break news and get decisions.

She phoned me at one point, telling me that the nurses were annoying
her, asking her to put in several IVs to "build up your strength, dear."
It fell to me to tell her the truth: that the IVs were very
specifically to counter a drug reaction that would, untreated, kill her
painlessly in 48-72 hours. I felt I had to give her the options --
there was one more treatment that might have any hope, although the
chance of it working was low. I explicitly told her I would suppport her
decision either way, and didn't consider it cowardly if she chose to
refuse the immediate treatment.

The long-term outcome was bad. She did respond to the immediate
treatment, but the new treatment was ineffective. She was then
transferred to a VA hospital (she had retired medically from the Army
Reserve), and the VA staff was far less willing to accept any input from
someone even named in an advanced directive. She crumbled for several
months, including a phase of brain metastasis where she felt her
consciouness and memory slipping away. At that point, I told her staff
comfort measures only -- do not attempt to cure potentially fatal
complications such as pneumonia. They refused, and, indeed, insisted on
intense life support even when she certainly was no longer conscious,
and was not going to wake up.