How would you like to pass away

[Nice Guy Eddie 13523]

The news about Alex Trebek and his diagnosis with Stage IV pancreatic cancer made me think about what is the preferred way to die. I think that most deaths fall into 3 areas: out of the blue (Luke Perry stroke, hit by bus), following a short illness (pancreatic cancer diagnosis) or a longer illness (cardiovascular disease, lung cancer.)  

The out of the blue death is nice that it happens fast but you may not have done or said all of the things you would want to in advance.  Not to mention that it stuns the people in your life. The long illness can be emotionally and financially draining on you and your family.

There is something to be said about getting the pancreatic cancer death sentence that most likely is 6 months or less. You have time to set (or review) your wishes, tackle any remaining bucket list items, tell people you love them, tell people to f-off, people can say their goodbyes, etc. I'm sure it can still be physically painful but not as drawn out as other illnesses.

 

[Llano Estacado 1257]

 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13523]

Quote

Senator Brian Flan... Billionaire governor... Brian Flanagan, whose self-propelled, meteoric rise to wealth and fame... would have made even J.D. Rockefeller envious... died early yesterday morning at the age of 99... while bedding his 18-year-old seventh wife, Heidi... who is recovering from exhaustion at the local hospital...

 

[irishtexan 11522]

Like this:

https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/crime-and-courts/4565804-minnesota-man-gives-wife-meth-throws-death-party-she-dies

Minnesota man gives wife meth, throws 'death party' before she dies

SEARLES, Minn. — A Searles man reportedly told authorities he gave his ailing wife methamphetamine and they had a “death party” before she died.

The husband said he did not get his wife medical help because she did not want to die in a nursing home, according to criminal charges filed against him.

Debra Lynn Johnson, 69, was found dead inside her Searles home Jan. 25 after her husband, Duane Arden Johnson, 58, called 911. Responding authorities reportedly found words spray-painted on the front door, a naked Duane Johnson, several guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

Duane Johnson was arrested without incident and was charged Friday with felony counts of theft and receiving stolen property.

He reported just before noon Thursday that his wife was dead in their home in the town of less than 200 people south of New Ulm.

The first Brown County sheriff's deputy on scene observed the words “Death Parde God Hell” written in red spray paint on the front door, according to a court complaint.

Duane Johnson came out naked, yelled that his wife was dead, and ran back inside. The deputy found him in a bathtub and he said he was trying to cleanse little white and black “things” from his skin.

Debra Johnson's body was wrapped in a sheet at the top of the stairs. The body was still warm but there was early rigor mortis in her arms. Duane Johnson said he thought his wife had died at about 8:30 that morning but had waited to make sure she was dead before he called 911.

He told authorities his wife had been in a nursing home and she begged him to take her home to die.

Investigators learned from the New Ulm Medical Center that Debra Johnson had been at a transitional care center but her husband removed her against medical advice. She previously had two heart attacks, had diabetes and high blood pressure. She also reportedly had mental illnesses and was on anti-psychotic medication.

Duane Johnson told authorities he and his wife had a “death party” for the final days of her life. They had been “rocking out” to their favorite song: Quiet Riot's “Metal Health.” They took methamphetamine and she stopped taking her medications, he said.

The man said his wife couldn't eat or drink so he said he used snow to wet her mouth. He said she had convulsions but she wouldn't let him call for help, so he held her to keep her from hurting herself. He said they had sex fewer than two hours before she died and she stopped convulsing and was more at peace.

After she died, he said he washed her and wrapped her in linen “like the Bible told me to do.”

Duane Johnson allegedly told an investigator he had 47 guns, many of which were stolen.

Authorities found four rifles and two shotguns in the house, the charges said. They also reportedly found hundreds of rounds of ammunition of several varieties.

Johnson made his first court appearance late Friday afternoon. Bail was set at $250,000 or $150,000 with conditions. He was still in the Brown County Jail Friday evening.

He has prior convictions for assault and DWI and is on probation for driving after license cancellation. A blood test taken after his DWI arrest in 2014 showed he had used methamphetamine, according to court records.

Searles is about 25 miles west of Mankato.

[Jack Straw 2954]

In all seriousness, if I can’t just pass away quietly of old age in my sleep, I’d like to get gored by a rhinoceros, or be swept off the deck of a ship in the middle of a typhoon, or something else that’s totally spectacular that people will remember and be talking about for a long long time.  

[DoobieWah 1456]

Old joke:

 

I want to die peacefully in my sleep, unbothered by age or illness, just like my grandpa did. NOT screaming and crying in fear like the passengers in his car.

[High Plains Drifter 11052]

 

[strangulation! 1716]

11 minutes ago, Jack Straw said:

In all seriousness, if I can’t just pass away quietly of old age in my sleep, I’d like to get gored by a rhinoceros, or be swept off the deck of a ship in the middle of a typhoon, or something else that’s totally spectacular that people will remember and be talking about for a long long time.  

same here. say i get diagnosed with a disease, and the doc tells me i have 4 weeks left to live.

with about 24 hours to go, i wanna be defenestrated

[Neonmoon 38130]

I like this guys attitude. 

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/why-i-hope-to-die-at-75

A portion of the article 

Quote

By the time I reach 75, I will have lived a complete life. I will have loved and been loved. My children will be grown and in the midst of their own rich lives. I will have seen my grandchildren born and beginning their lives. I will have pursued my life’s projects and made whatever contributions, important or not, I am going to make. And hopefully, I will not have too many mental and physical limitations. Dying at 75 will not be a tragedy. Indeed, I plan to have my memorial service before I die. And I don’t want any crying or wailing, but a warm gathering filled with fun reminiscences, stories of my awkwardness, and celebrations of a good life. After I die, my survivors can have their own memorial service if they want—that is not my business.

Let me be clear about my wish. I’m neither asking for more time than is likely nor foreshortening my life. Today I am, as far as my physician and I know, very healthy, with no chronic illness. I just climbed Kilimanjaro with two of my nephews. So I am not talking about bargaining with God to live to 75 because I have a terminal illness. Nor am I talking about waking up one morning 18 years from now and ending my life through euthanasia or suicide. Since the 1990s, I have actively opposed legalizing euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. People who want to die in one of these ways tend to suffer not from unremitting pain but from depression, hopelessness, and fear of losing their dignity and control. The people they leave behind inevitably feel they have somehow failed. The answer to these symptoms is not ending a life but getting help. I have long argued that we should focus on giving all terminally ill people a good, compassionate death—not euthanasia or assisted suicide for a tiny minority.

I am talking about how long I want to live and the kind and amount of health care I will consent to after 75. Americans seem to be obsessed with exercising, doing mental puzzles, consuming various juice and protein concoctions, sticking to strict diets, and popping vitamins and supplements, all in a valiant effort to cheat death and prolong life as long as possible. This has become so pervasive that it now defines a cultural type: what I call the American immortal.

I reject this aspiration. I think this manic desperation to endlessly extend life is misguided and potentially destructive. For many reasons, 75 is a pretty good age to aim to stop.

When my body starts naturally breaking down after 75, I don’t want to do anything to keep it going for 20 more years. The quality of life isn’t worth it. I don’t want to die, but if my body starts dying, if I get cancer, or I have a stroke, or whatever. I don’t want a bunch of treatments or surgeries to keep the train going longer than it should, 

[Fuck Tim Beck 3834]

Two chicks at the same time. 

[seven 1368]

Edited March 8, 2019 by seven

[mulletpelini 5216]

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

Heroin.

[Nivek 16982]

Nutted?

[mulletpelini 5216]

bolting.

[Surly Bevo 25143]

I'm thinking mild circulatory condition of the head brought on while going to pound town followed by a multiple month period where a guy who looks just like me makes amends for any of my wrongs and cements my legacy before I finally check out.  

[F250 28817]

Going out in a gunfight and leaving a posthumous fuck you to my killer.

 

[Gambrinus 51]

On the Champs-Elysees, with cash in my pocket, and a needle in my penis.

[SquishMitten 10427]

I only have two answers to the question. 1) Before my children, and 2) before my wife. 

As long as I can have that, I’ll take whatever hell life wants to give me

[Armybrat 40890]

^^^^ that.....and in my sleep after UT wins back to back FBS national championships.

[El Diablo 4232]

1 hour ago, Jack Straw said:

In all seriousness, if I can’t just pass away quietly of old age in my sleep, I’d like to get gored by a rhinoceros, or be swept off the deck of a ship in the middle of a typhoon, or something else that’s totally spectacular that people will remember and be talking about for a long long time.  

Had a friend who was lost overboard in the South China Sea, body never recovered. No Bueno.

[Kennythetiger 9448]

9 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

^^^^ that.....and in my sleep after UT wins back to back FBS national championships.

Brat's gonna live forever.

[Wally Fairway 5584]

10 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

^^^^ that.....and in my sleep after UT wins back to back FBS national championships.

So you had one foot in the grave in 2006

[South Austin 52584]

While reading Surly on the shitter.

[Incredulity 11683]

Quietly in my sleep after a big family get together.

or

Massive heart attack mid-coitus after doing a line of coke off 3 hookers asses while my last check simultaneously bounces.

[Knoxtnhorn 6066]

Anyone picking cancer is insane.  I've only seen one person close to me die from it (grandfather) and there's no fucking way I'd choose that one.

Thank God the Brazen Bull isn't around anymore.

[Hate 20143]

I want to go after getting a nut, whenever that is. What I’d really like is a Viking funeral in Lake Buchanan. That would be awesome.

[Macanudo 13010]

10 hours ago, DoobieWah said:

Old joke:

 

I want to die peacefully in my sleep, unbothered by age or illness, just like my grandpa did. NOT screaming and crying in fear like the passengers in his car.

In all seriousness that's kind of how my grandfather died.   Was driving home, powered through a massive heart attack to avoid driving through a major, busy intersection and possibly a killing someone else.   All the while, my grandmother is in the passenger seat losing her shit as she realizes what is happening.   He steered the car clar of other cars and slumped over dead.    the only drawback to this scenario is 1.  she had to witness him die and 2.  he was only 57 years old. 

[DoobieWah 1456]

2 minutes ago, Macanudo said:

In all seriousness that's kind of how my grandfather died.   Was driving home, powered through a massive heart attack to avoid driving through a major, busy intersection and possibly a killing someone else.   All the while, my grandmother is in the passenger seat losing her shit as she realizes what is happening.   He steered the car clar of other cars and slumped over dead.    the only drawback to this scenario is 1.  she had to witness him die and 2.  he was only 57 years old. 

 

Well, it used to be a funny joke.

[naija 2869]

wondering how many of you have been around people dying.

I can tell you that this:

"There is something to be said about getting the pancreatic cancer death sentence that most likely is 6 months or less. You have time to set (or review) your wishes, tackle any remaining bucket list items, tell people you love them, tell people to f-off, people can say their goodbyes, etc. I'm sure it can still be physically painful but not as drawn out as other illnesses."

is not how pancreatic cancer usually turns out

[Macanudo 13010]

10 minutes ago, DoobieWah said:

 

Well, it used to be a funny joke.

Still funny to me.  But I'm kind of a sick fuck.

Edited March 9, 2019 by Macanudo

[Deej 76903]

With my face buried between Milana Vayntrub's breasts.

[Not a cat 5698]

18 minutes ago, naija said:

wondering how many of you have been around people dying.

I can tell you that this:

"There is something to be said about getting the pancreatic cancer death sentence that most likely is 6 months or less. You have time to set (or review) your wishes, tackle any remaining bucket list items, tell people you love them, tell people to f-off, people can say their goodbyes, etc. I'm sure it can still be physically painful but not as drawn out as other illnesses."

is not how pancreatic cancer usually turns out

Yeah, this. My father went that way.  It did not seem fun.

After seeing that, i'll take the die in your sleep. 

 

[UTGrad98 2281]

If all of my loved ones have died I wouldn’t mind being shot out of a rocket ship in deep space with 2 days of oxygen and a self destruct button. If we are getting to choose that is. 

[Longhorn Al 440]

I'd rather have time to put things in order.  But not so much time that I slowly deteriorate and can't care for myself. 

If I can't have that, then an Alamo-esque death full of glory, or sacrificing myself for someone (i.e. taking a bullet).

Edited March 9, 2019 by Longhorn Al

[Chico_SA 521]

My brother always says he wants to spray himself down with a hose out in the field and freeze to death. 

I thought swimming out so far into the ocean that I couldn't make it back would be a good way to go.  But as a swimmer, I also know how much it sucks in that moment when you really need a breath. 

[RDCanecutter 26468]

I'll need an accomplice to do it right. Not for the actual death part, because whatever that is, it's guaranteed, I'm 100% sure I can do the death thing unassisted one day, however it goes.

What I need the accomplice for, is to leave my pre-recorded cackling laughter on folk's answering machines every anniversary of my death.

[Chilly Water 416]

Go out with a bang...like final scene of Devils Rejects. With Lynyrd Skynyrd at full volume

 

[Buffsoldier 1895]

While being pleasured by Kate Beckinsale and Sofia Vergara.

Seriously though, I'd love to know that my death provided others the opportunity for life.  Therefore this is the way I'd like to go.  On my way to have my organs donated:

 

Edited March 9, 2019 by Buffsoldier

[Hate 20143]

That’s a noble thought, but I doubt anyone will be able to use my liver. Or lungs...or kidneys really.

[WhatTheBuck 28797]

Painlessly. 

[Guest]

Shared this on TOS when it happened, but my grandfather had just taken the dog for a morning walk.  Hangs up his coat in the closet, goes to living room and  plops down in the recliner while asking, " What's for breakfast?"  Grandmother in the adjacent kitchen starts to answer and hears a very loud gasp.  She rushes over to check on him and he gone.

Massive heart attack killed him almost instantly.

Sucked really bad for Grandma, but yeah, let me go like that.   No suffering.  No pain.  Just thinking of my dog and some bacon...

[MissingInAction 25176]

I'll be going down with a blade in my enemy's neck, and a smile on my face.

[pch 1261]

21 hours ago, irishtexan said:

Like this:

https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/crime-and-courts/4565804-minnesota-man-gives-wife-meth-throws-death-party-she-dies

Minnesota man gives wife meth, throws 'death party' before she dies

SEARLES, Minn. — A Searles man reportedly told authorities he gave his ailing wife methamphetamine and they had a “death party” before she died.

The husband said he did not get his wife medical help because she did not want to die in a nursing home, according to criminal charges filed against him.

Debra Lynn Johnson, 69, was found dead inside her Searles home Jan. 25 after her husband, Duane Arden Johnson, 58, called 911. Responding authorities reportedly found words spray-painted on the front door, a naked Duane Johnson, several guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

Duane Johnson was arrested without incident and was charged Friday with felony counts of theft and receiving stolen property.

He reported just before noon Thursday that his wife was dead in their home in the town of less than 200 people south of New Ulm.

The first Brown County sheriff's deputy on scene observed the words “Death Parde God Hell” written in red spray paint on the front door, according to a court complaint.

Duane Johnson came out naked, yelled that his wife was dead, and ran back inside. The deputy found him in a bathtub and he said he was trying to cleanse little white and black “things” from his skin.

Debra Johnson's body was wrapped in a sheet at the top of the stairs. The body was still warm but there was early rigor mortis in her arms. Duane Johnson said he thought his wife had died at about 8:30 that morning but had waited to make sure she was dead before he called 911.

He told authorities his wife had been in a nursing home and she begged him to take her home to die.

Investigators learned from the New Ulm Medical Center that Debra Johnson had been at a transitional care center but her husband removed her against medical advice. She previously had two heart attacks, had diabetes and high blood pressure. She also reportedly had mental illnesses and was on anti-psychotic medication.

Duane Johnson told authorities he and his wife had a “death party” for the final days of her life. They had been “rocking out” to their favorite song: Quiet Riot's “Metal Health.” They took methamphetamine and she stopped taking her medications, he said.

The man said his wife couldn't eat or drink so he said he used snow to wet her mouth. He said she had convulsions but she wouldn't let him call for help, so he held her to keep her from hurting herself. He said they had sex fewer than two hours before she died and she stopped convulsing and was more at peace.

After she died, he said he washed her and wrapped her in linen “like the Bible told me to do.”

Duane Johnson allegedly told an investigator he had 47 guns, many of which were stolen.

Authorities found four rifles and two shotguns in the house, the charges said. They also reportedly found hundreds of rounds of ammunition of several varieties.

Johnson made his first court appearance late Friday afternoon. Bail was set at $250,000 or $150,000 with conditions. He was still in the Brown County Jail Friday evening.

He has prior convictions for assault and DWI and is on probation for driving after license cancellation. A blood test taken after his DWI arrest in 2014 showed he had used methamphetamine, according to court records.

Searles is about 25 miles west of Mankato.

So let me see if I get this-the Rock gave a rock to his wife while listening to rock, she died while fried on the inside, and he is now going to be somebody's boy toy in the slammer?  Definitely not how I wanna go out.

Edited March 9, 2019 by pch

[Macanudo 13010]

Oh man.    That Walk of Respect was tough to watch but I really appreciate that they did it.   

[Armybrat 40890]

11 hours ago, naija said:

wondering how many of you have been around people dying.

Spent the last few hours of my mother’s life watching her gasping for breath as the COPD did its work. She had been a light smoker for 65 years.

[Shoxthemonkey 1983]

I watched both of my parents die. I had to make the decision to pull the plug. I will not put my kids through that if I can help it. If I get a terminal diagnoses , I will go out to my pasture and pull the trigger.

[Aqua Buddha 14608]

I could comment but this is one of the most well written pieces on the subject.  I was thinking of starting a separate thread on it but this thread popped up:

 

I recently turned 70 in Marin County, Calif., home to some of the healthiest, wealthiest and longest-lived people in the country. I swim daily, take no medications and can still hoist my roll-aboard bag into an overhead bin. But there is no denying that somewhere beyond the horizon, my death has saddled his horse and is heading my way. And I’m hoping to make that death as good as my life has been.

My wish is to die in my own bed, cared for by people I love—clean, comfortable and relatively free from pain. I hope to have time to say my goodbyes and give my final blessings. But in our technologically advanced society—despite the billions we spend on end-of-life medical care—this simple, old-fashioned and once-inexpensive death is harder to achieve than you might think.

 

According to a 2017 Kaiser Foundation study, seven in 10 Americans hope to die at home. But half die in nursing homes and hospitals, and more than a tenth are cruelly shuttled from one to the other in their final three days. Pain is a major barrier to a peaceful death, and nearly half of dying Americans suffer from uncontrolled pain. Nobody I know hopes to die in the soulless confines of an Intensive Care Unit. But more than a quarter of Medicare members cycle through one in their final month, and a fifth of Americans die in an ICU.

In his final year of life, retired IBM manager Ed Walski, who had Parkinson’s disease and dementia, was shuttled nine times between his assisted living apartment and hospitals and nursing homes. “The first few times I’d say, OK, we got him through this, and now he’s going to get rehab and be back where he was,” said his daughter Karen Randall, a veterinarian in Silver Spring, Md. “But he never came back. It was a stair step down to the basement.” Despite financial resources and a devoted daughter, Walski’s dying was far more chaotic and painful than it needed to be.

I don’t want that to be my story.

I’ve spent the past three years interviewing hundreds of people who have witnessed good deaths and hard ones, and I consulted top experts in end-of-life medicine. This is what I learned about how to get the best from our imperfect health-care system and how to prepare for a good end of life.

Have a vision. Some doctors assume that everyone wants to extend life until there is no joy left in the living of it. They’re mistaken. In the Kaiser study, most people cared much more about not having their families financially burdened by their care or distressed by tough medical decisions; having their medical preferences honored; and dying in peace spiritually, with their loved ones around them. Living as long as possible was at the very bottom of most people’s lists.

Imagine what it would take to die in peace and work back from there. Whom do you need to thank or forgive? Do you want to die under the stars or listening to a Mary Oliver poem or with Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” playing? Any of this is possible if you face death while still enjoying life and recognize the pitfalls of modern medicine.

Advanced medicine is replete with treatments (ventilators, dialysis, defibrillators, feeding tubes, to name a few) that postpone death and prolong misery without restoring health. The default setting is often to provide them until the whole family unequivocally says “No.” Get clear, long before that final panicked call to 911, on what gives your life joy and meaning. When you can no longer enjoy those things, what medical treatments would you refuse? Nobody can answer this for you. We vary widely in how much suffering we’re willing to endure for more time on earth.

Talk to those you love about what a good “quality of life” means to you and put it in writing in a letter or advance directive. Appoint someone with people skills and a backbone to speak for you if you can no longer speak for yourself. The best choice for your “health care agent” isn’t necessarily a close family member. In a crisis, he or she may be too overwhelmed to let you go.

Stay in charge. If your doctor isn’t curious about what matters to you or won’t tell you what’s going on in plain English, fire that doctor and find another. That’s what Amy Berman did when a prominent oncologist told her to undergo chemotherapy, a mastectomy, radiation and then more chemo to treat her stage-four inflammatory breast cancer. This course would have destroyed her quality of life without curing her rare, and usually lethal, variant of breast cancer. “I thanked him for his time and left,” said Ms. Berman, a health policy grantmaker for the John A. Hartford Foundation.

She engaged another oncologist who asked her, “What do you want to accomplish?” Ms. Berman said that she was aiming for a “Niagara Falls trajectory:” To live as well as possible for as long as possible, followed by a rapid final decline.

It has been eight years since then, and Ms. Berman is now 59. She hasn’t undergone surgery or chemo, been hospitalized or gone into debt. A daily estrogen-suppressing pill slows her disease, and a one-time intense burst of “palliative radiation” eliminated pain from cancer cells that had spread to her spine. She’s kept working, ridden a jet ski to the Statue of Liberty, written for the Washington Post, watched her daughter graduate from college and gone snowmobiling in Iceland. “Most doctors,” she says, “focus only on length of life. That’s not my only metric.”

Know the trajectory of your illness. If you face a frightening diagnosis, ask your doctor to draw a sketch tracking how you might feel and function during your illness and its treatments. A visual will yield far more helpful information than asking exactly how much time you have left. Such predictions are as unreliable as weather forecasts, and most doctors vastly overestimate.

A sketch, on the other hand, will yield a surprising amount of actionable intelligence. It may help you, in particular, to recognize the advent of the precarious health stage that I call the “house of cards.” This fragile state is marked by needing caregivers and repeatedly returning from hospital stays worse off rather than better. At this stage, consider shifting your emphasis from cure to comfort and find an alternative to the emergency room. Look for a physician or nurse housecall service or a home-based palliative care or “serious illness management” program.

 

All of this may be easier for people with money, but that is not the only determinant of a good decline and death. Two of the best deaths I studied involved people with little savings, and some of the worst were inflicted on people with plenty of money and rolodexes full of influential names. If funds are low, seek out government programs like PACE (the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly), which provides medical care at home, and other services that relieve burdens on family caregivers. 

And don’t be afraid of hospice. It won’t make you die sooner, it’s covered by insurance, and you are more likely to die well, with your family supported and your pain under control.

Find your tribe and arrange caregivers. Dying at home is labor-intensive. Hospices provide home visits from nurses and other professionals, but your friends, relatives and hired aides will be the ones who empty bedpans and provide hands-on care. You don’t have to be rich, or a saint, to handle this well. You do need one fiercely committed person to act as a central tentpole and as many part-timers as you can marshal. People who die comfortable, well-supported deaths at home tend to have one of three things going for them: money, a good government program or a rich social network of neighbors or friends.

When my former dance teacher Stephanie Moore got ovarian cancer, she drew on the gratitude bank that she’d built over years of teaching salsa and swing. One well-organized woman created a calendar of helpers who took four-hour shifts. Her daughter was at her cottage daily. I brought dinner once a week, and my husband drove her to chemotherapy. Because commitments were widely shared, no single person was overwhelmed. When Stephanie died five months later, everyone could look back with pride on the job they had done.

So don’t wait until you’re at death’s door to explore your passions, deepen your relationships and find your posse. It doesn’t matter if you discover it among fellow quilters, folk-dancers, bridge-players, Tai Chi practitioners, or in the Junior League, the Rotary or the Christian Motorcyclists Association. You just need to get together regularly and share an activity face to face. 

Take command of the space. No matter where death occurs, you can bring calm and meaning to the room. Don’t be afraid to rearrange the physical environment. Weddings have been held in ICUs so that a dying mother could witness the ceremony, and dogs have been smuggled onto hospital floors. In a hospital or nursing home, ask for a private hospice room or “comfort suite,” get televisions and telemetry turned off and stop the taking of vital signs. You can turn a bedside table into an altar for flowers, family photographs or religious icons. Open flames are forbidden, but electric LED “candles” can create a sacred feeling.

Hospital staff may help if you ask. When Liz Salmi’s mentor lay unconscious on a ventilator in a dark, windowless ICU room, attended by a cacophony of hisses and electronic bloops, she and other close friends lobbied for a better setup. All monitors but one were silenced, a doctor removed the breathing tube, and nurses and aides gurneyed her dying friend quickly into the ICU’s “best room”—a sunny spot, with windows opening to the outdoors. One friend set up small speakers and cued a playlist. 

“Unburdened by machines,” Liz wrote on her blog, TheLizArmy, “his body began sinking into the bed. I said, ‘this is natural,’ to remind myself that I was witnessing part of the cycle of life, much like a baby crying when born.” Liz remembers a peaceful death, in fresh air and sunlight, with the man’s favorite music playing and his closest friends holding him.

Think of death as a rite of passage. In the days before effective medicine, our ancestors were guided by books and customs that framed dying as a spiritual ordeal rather than a medical event. (One of the West’s first best-selling self-help books, published in 1450 in Latin, was titled “The Art of Dying.”) A spiritually mature individual was expected to contemplate it ahead of time. Without abandoning the best of what modern medicine has to offer, return to that spirit. Don’t reduce the end of your life to a medical procedure or strip it of ceremony and humanity. Make sure you live and die as a full human being.

Over the years, as I’ve listened to hundreds of stories, I’ve learned one thing: Those who contemplate their aging, vulnerability and mortality often live better lives and experience better deaths than those who don’t. They shape lives of comfort, joy and meaning, even as their bodies decline. They get clear-eyed about the trajectory of their illnesses, so they can plan. They regard doctors as their consultants, not their bosses. They seek out medical allies who tell the truth and help them thrive in the face of adversity. They enroll in hospice earlier, and often feel and function better—and sometimes even live longer—than those who pursue maximum treatment. And they often die with less physical suffering, and just as much attention to the sacred, as our ancestors did.

There is a way to a peaceful, empowered death, even in our era of high-tech medicine. If you accept the reality of death and plan for it rather than fight it, you can restore dignity, community and, yes, even beauty to your final passage.

That’s not to promise it will be easy. I wish I could guarantee you a vigorous old age, a short decline and a swift, painless death. I wish I could tell you that our nation routinely provides supportive, well-coordinated health care for all people, no matter what their incomes, in the often-prolonged passage from active living to active dying. But let’s face it: We influence our lives, but we don’t control them, and the same goes for how they end. No matter how bravely you adapt to loss and how cannily you navigate our fragmented health system, dying will still represent the ultimate loss of control.

But you don’t have to be a passive victim. You retain moral agency. You can keep shaping your life all the way to its end—as long as you seize the power to imagine, to arrange support and to plan.

—This essay is adapted from Ms. Butler’s new book, “The Art of Dying Well: A Practical Guide to a Good End of Life,” which will be published on Feb. 19 by Scribner.

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/preparing-for-a-good-end-of-life-11549643346?ns=prod/accounts-wsj

[SquishMitten 10427]

14 hours ago, Macanudo said:

In all seriousness that's kind of how my grandfather died.   Was driving home, powered through a massive heart attack to avoid driving through a major, busy intersection and possibly a killing someone else.   All the while, my grandmother is in the passenger seat losing her shit as she realizes what is happening.   He steered the car clar of other cars and slumped over dead.    the only drawback to this scenario is 1.  she had to witness him die and 2.  he was only 57 years old. 

Similar thing happened to my dad. Driving from Austin to Port A, drinking, had a heart attack. Powered through it, and drove himself to a hospital. Unfortunately, he lived. He credits his survival to the fact he was drunk at the time.

[HornsOverIthaca 2335]

19 hours ago, Chico_SA said:

My brother always says he wants to spray himself down with a hose out in the field and freeze to death. 

I thought swimming out so far into the ocean that I couldn't make it back would be a good way to go.  But as a swimmer, I also know how much it sucks in that moment when you really need a breath. 

...both of these sound kinda awful.  Wouldn’t an industrial fireworks accident be more fun?  Probably wouldn’t feel it.