HW 19 - Family Perspective on Illness & Dying.

My fathers opinion on Illness and dying:
    "My own father died of a heart attack and he died within minutes of a heart attack and although it was shock because he was at a such a young age and it happened so quickly, he was healthy one minute and dead the next. Now compared that to my mother whom had a rare brain disease and died slowly over two years reverting or going back to a helpless infant. When I look at both of these ways i would rather die in minutes. It was much more difficult to watch someone you love to die slowly deteriorating in front of your eyes and you cant do anything about it and my mother gave me the power of allowing her not to be put on tubes , not to be kept alive artificially and die in her own home which was her wish. so for use we lived up to her wishes and we felt she made the right decision because it was what she wanted and it to us it was more comforting , we all knew the outcome it wasn't a secret. We were happy we could live up to her wishes and we allowed because we had the power so the doctors couldn't put on life support, she felt when the time was ready she would die. to think about we could of prolonged her life another six months but she would of suffered. It was an incurable disease to this day it is still an incurable disease. It slowly paralyzed her entire body. The disease today is still incurable to this day."
  
    "When my grandfathers died in those  days they were considered old 65 to 70 years old they just died. One died of cancer the other one died in a car accident. In those days there was nothing you could do for cancer. After you have the funeral their buried, then what could you possible do they are gone. You miss you love them but now they are gone, all you can do is remember the good times with them you can miss them but their really isn't anything you can do. Fortunately you remember them but life has to go on. You can remember the good times, remember the fun you have with them, remember the things they said. But life goes on."

    "My sister had lung cancer which was a life changing experience for her because she was cured. she lived with fear of knowing that she could possibly die and then found out that she was one of the lucky ones that the doctors were able to cure. But she still worries about the cancer coming back and killing her. therefore this experience that she  has gone though was a life changing experience. She goes thorough life now looking at things differently, she doesn't sweat the small stuff, in other words she realizes that having good health is probably the most important that a person could have. Without good health either your gonna suffer for the rest of your life or and what frightens her the most was knowing that lung cancer is a very horrible way to die. Its a very long and slow process. Im sure she knows had they not been able to cure her that it is a very horrible death, you suffocate to death, you suffer is really the bottom line there because its a slow death. Some people suffer for years and then die its painful, its a terrible way to die , some of these diereses are just horrible."