Last month my nephew and I agreed to a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order for my mother. As co-guardians, we had separately agonized about telling the other how we felt about this touchy subject. Let’s just say we have some relationship baggage that included end-of-life care issues, and we each thought the other would object passionately.
Minutes before last month’s meeting with the nursing home’s staff, we finally discussed what had bothered us, surprised that we were in agreement. At the conclusion of that meeting, we signed the DNR to be later signed by my mother’s physician.
DNR, also known as no code or allow natural death, became part of our collective awareness when Karen Ann Quinlan’s parents sued to have their brain-dead daughter removed from artificial ventilation in 1975 against the doctors’ insistence that they do all they could to keep her alive. It was almost a year later when the ventilation was removed, but she did not die until 1985 of pneumonia, never having regained consciousness.
In 1991 Congress passed the Patient Self-Determination Act that mandated hospitals honor an individual’s decision in their healthcare. Thus my nephew and I were legally able to make that critical decision.
In the last year, my mother suffered two major strokes. Although she is better than a few weeks ago, the overall trend is not good. She is 88 and we know another stroke could occur anytime. Seeing a once-vital woman, nurse, and positive role-model confined to a bed, being fed by tube and barely able to communicate is heartbreaking. If my nephew and I were not able to communicate with each other, my mother might had been put in a situation like Karen Ann Quinlan.
I wish my mother had communicated her desire beforehand, but we are at peace knowing that when the day comes, we were united in the signing of a DNR. And we are modeling this discussion for our own children.
