Is Quitting Dialysis Suicide

[Rerun]

Knowing that I can stop has ironically kept me going.

This is exactly how I feel.  As long as I'm in "control" I feel better about dialysis.

[kitkatz]

Rerun...I agree...

I still think quitting dialysis is not suicide. 
Giving up on life is suicide.
When it gets real bad and I do not have a life anymore and dialysis is the any thing keeping me here, I am leaving! I think a quality of life is more important than quantity. If I can be a feisty old woman, then let's have at it with the dialysis.  But if I have lost my mind, quit it.

[angieskidney]

D&T City Link about a news article talking about "Many nephrologists Unprepared for End-of-Life Decisions"

Direct Link to the News Article: http://www.renalbusiness.com/hotnews/69h14981737045.html

Article from RenalBusinessToday.com

"WASHINGTON--Sixty percent of nephrologists don't feel well prepared to make the decision to stop dialysis in kidney disease patients nearing the end of life, according to a study in November's Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology."

I figured this was relevant to this topic so I thought I would share this.

[AlasdairUK]

My father had a friend who was 60 and diabetic, he knew his kidneys where failing and he decided not to have dialysis. Is this suicide?

He lived in Swaziland and would of had to pay for his treatment which you can not sustain for a prolong period of time. This would have bankrupted his family if he tried to stay alive. Is this suicide?

Being a British citizen he could have returned to the UK and received treatment, but would still have had to accommodate himself and would have been away from his family (or his family would have to move with him) and lived out the rest of his life on dialysis. I'm not sure how practical this would have been, but deciding not to do this for me was definitely not suicide. It was a sad event, but he had lived for a very long time as a diabetic (I'm not sure how long or even if from birth.) and this in it's own right was an illness that should have killed him if he did not take insulin.

So I think another question could be when does it become acceptable not to use medical intervention to prolong your life?

If he did not take his insulin when first diagnosed with being diabetic this would have been seen as unacceptable as living with diabetics is seen as a normal thing, but refusing to have dialysis because of his circumstance is acceptable.

[angieskidney]

See in that case I would say dialysis at a later stage in life, that would bankrupt your family... not doing dialysis is not suicide but more like turning down that tank that rumours have said sick people have gone in to be frozen til a cure is found but costs a lot. Does this make sense? If you can't afford it and it is the normal course .. how is that suicide? You didn't cause your kidneys to fail! The natural course of things would be death. Just for me being 32 .. I don't want to think about death (it depresses me enough that my friend Jamie died when he was my age on dialysis as it is ...)

[sandman]

My father had a friend who was 60 and diabetic, he knew his kidneys where failing and he decided not to have dialysis. Is this suicide?

He lived in Swaziland and would of had to pay for his treatment which you can not sustain for a prolong period of time. This would have bankrupted his family if he tried to stay alive. Is this suicide?

I wouldn't call that suicide but this does raise a rather interesting thought.

Say you were in need of medical services but could not afford them.  All the medical institutions in reach of you, turned you away because you could not pay for their services.  Wouldn't that be considered involuntary manslaughter?

[Rerun]

I wouldn't call that suicide but this does raise a rather interesting thought.

Say you were in need of medical services but could not afford them.  All the medical institutions in reach of you, turned you away because you could not pay for their services.  Wouldn't that be considered involuntary manslaughter?

It may be, but at some point people die.  Why can't people just pass naturally.  Why is it either suicide or murder.  I mean they can keep people alive.  No question.  But, at what point do you just let them go peacefully.

[sandman]

Why can't people just pass naturally.

Let me ask you this.  Do you think kidney disease is natural, or for the matter, normal?  Don't let your current position answer this question for you.  Try to think from a healthy persons perspective.

But, at what point do you just let them go peacefully.

This is just my opinion but I would suppose when 2 conditions are met.

1.) When the person in question is welcoming death.
2.) When all options to prolong life have failed or would be useless to continue or try.

[Rerun]

Is disease (any disease) natural?  Yes.  Is it brought on by different environmental and personal choices?  Yes.  If you chose to smoke and you get Lung Disease then that is a personal choice.  If you get ESRD from eating a bad bag of Spinach than that is Environmental.  If you end up with ESRD due to diabetes then that is related to the parent disease. 

When Adam ate the apple that brought on death for mankind.  You can debate it all you want, but people will die.  And when you have a debilitating disease, which ESRD can be, then you need to go before you drain all resources to keep you alive. 

But, people usually decide.  We do all we can and after they have been on the ventilator and dialysis and IV's, and feeding tubes, then they are allowed to die. 

[angieskidney]

I wouldn't call that suicide but this does raise a rather interesting thought.

Say you were in need of medical services but could not afford them.  All the medical institutions in reach of you, turned you away because you could not pay for their services.  Wouldn't that be considered involuntary manslaughter?

It may be, but at some point people die.  Why can't people just pass naturally.  Why is it either suicide or murder.  I mean they can keep people alive.  No question.  But, at what point do you just let them go peacefully.

I agree with Rerun and have to say "FINALLY!" that is exactly how I felt! People DO have a right to pass naturally! I just wouldn't stop dialysis at the age I am at because I know I still have a long life to live!

Why can't people just pass naturally.

Let me ask you this. Do you think kidney disease is natural, or for the matter, normal? Don't let your current position answer this question for you. Try to think from a healthy persons perspective.

But, at what point do you just let them go peacefully.

This is just my opinion but I would suppose when 2 conditions are met.

1.) When the person in question is welcoming death.
2.) When all options to prolong life have failed or would be useless to continue or try.

The medical way in which our lives can be prolonged are NOT natural. Death IS natural.

Don't worry Sandman, no one is wanting to die here. But don't take away our choice of being able to die naturally just because medical science can keep us alive. Sometimes you just have to accept that people DO die!

[Rerun]

Really I enjoy the debate.  It makes me think as well as others.  In the end we report to our maker.  If HE thinks it is suicide then I'm screwed.   

[sandman]

Really I enjoy the debate.  It makes me think as well as others.  In the end we report to our maker.  If HE thinks it is suicide then I'm screwed.   

Oh, I agree.  I do enjoy the debate and I get to learn other peoples views as well.

[AlasdairUK]

So I think another question could be when does it become acceptable not to use medical intervention to prolong your life?

I'm 26 at the moment with no intention of stopping dialysis, but I am relatively healthy and live as normal a life as possible. I hope I never get to the point where I have to ask myself is dialysis adding enough benefit to my life.

I have seen some people and I am grateful I'm not them.

[lost sheep]

accepting death is not suicide!  Don't tell people that it is!!!  It's not and you aren't doing any good by saying that it is.  What's wrong with you people?

[Epoman]

accepting death is not suicide!  Don't tell people that it is!!!  It's not and you aren't doing any good by saying that it is.  What's wrong with you people?

Did your "Cocaine" addiction give you that revelation? Or did you learn it while abusing some other drug? You post like you have the definitive answer and everyone else is wrong. What's wrong with YOU?

- Epoman

[AlasdairUK]

accepting death is not suicide! Don't tell people that it is!!! It's not and you aren't doing any good by saying that it is. What's wrong with you people?

But refusing medical care that could bring a high quality of life to you and your loved ones is selfish. Just because you are scared of having to fight. Even the "normal" healthy people without kidney failure have to fight every day of there lives.

[Sluff]

Well this certainly has been a colorful debate and I'm going add this comment.

Plain and simple I am not on dialysis yet and I'm really scared of the prospect of going on dialysis, About 9 months ago the possibility of someday being on dialysis became a reality. Now I can somewhat objectively put in my  worth.

I used to (6 months ago) think there is no way I'm going to go through all the problems related to being on dialysis and that I would let nature just take it's course. I thought this way because I felt alone.

I actually started to have a lot more respect for those that have endured this disease and still fight the fight everyday, because I started to realize that I was looking through a window at something I knew nothing about and that I am scared of it.. and all these other people aren't looking through a window, they are actively living it, and I respect the fact that they have what it takes to tolerate this disease without giving up.

I do honestly believe that anyone can reach the point where they can say enough is enough. Is it suicide? I don't think so, but I do think everyone has their own level of tolerance to the effects of any disease, so with that it becomes a personal choice. As long as you have explored all options available.

[Zach]

accepting death is not suicide!  Don't tell people that it is!!!  It's not and you aren't doing any good by saying that it is.  What's wrong with you people?

I accept the fact that I'm going to die.  And sooner rather than later.  I'm quite comfortable with that, and have been for over twenty years.  But that doesn't mean I'm going to hasten it.  I have a few more documentaries in me yet to produce/direct.

[nextnoel]

I used to (6 months ago) think there is no way I'm going to go through all the problems related to being on dialysis and that I would let nature just take it's course. I thought this way because I felt alone.

I'm also pre-D, and before I found this site, thought I would "let nature just take its course".  Dialysis was so impossible to comprehend, so terrifying, so defeating.   But now I've come to understand so much about how dialysis works and how to deal with the problems that inevitably come your way, even though I'm still on the outside looking in, and I have had that understanding expanded by reading about all the folks who are really LIVING while on dialysis.  I feel as if I will still be able to enjoy life when I am on dialysis.  The essential me won't be taken away, and might even be improved!

That having been said, when the essential me does finally go away, I don't want the corporeal me to be hooked up to every gadget known to humankind just so monitors can light up.  As W. C. Fields said, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.  Then quit.  No use being a damned fool about it.!

[mallory]

accepting death is not suicide!  Don't tell people that it is!!!  It's not and you aren't doing any good by saying that it is.  What's wrong with you people?

C'mon, Lost Sheep.  I defended your right to make a choice concerning the end of your life, and I still do.  I do think it's sad that you said because you can't eat, drink and have sex like you did you might as well be dead, but, it's still your decision.  You can't dictate your opinion, any more than you want others to dictate theirs.

Everyone has a right to their own opinion, especially concerning how their life will end.  Everyone's life experiences will alter that opinion, but it's still the right of the individual to make that choice. 

For some people, stopping dialysis is suicide, for others, it isn't.

[Joe Paul]

In short, for me to accept death would be to accept defeat , sorry it ain't in me.

[mallory]

In short, for me to accept death would be to accept defeat , sorry it ain't in me.

It would be for me, too, Joe Paul.  I agree with you.

But I know not everyone feels that way, and, if someone else felt that they had done everything they could and they wanted to stop dialysis, I would defend their right to stop dialysis without calling it suicide.

I just think everyone has the right to evaluate their own circumstances and make their own decision.  Some of us are stronger than others, and so maybe we would have made different decisions.  But, at the end of the day, we all get to make that decision ourselves.  I just hope that anyone who is considering making a decision like that will talk to everyone in their life that matters to them, it's a huge decision that affects a lot of people, not just the person stopping dialysis.

[stauffenberg]

There seems to be an essential confusion in this discussion between what technically constitutes causing one's own death, which is what suicide basically means, and wrongly causing one's own death, which is how some people posting seem to define it. 

It is highly arbitrary to define some things as natural and others as artificial, since almost everything in life is a continuous admixture of both.  Is it natural to push organic matter down the largest hole in your head, hoping it will go down the right tube to your stomach and nourish you, rather than down the wrong tube to your lungs and suffocate you?  Described this way, eating sounds like quite an unnatural thing.  Yet if a healthy person locks himself up in his room and decides not to eat, this would certainly fit the ordinary definition of suicide.  But what if you need special 'food' to live, such as dialysate slowing through your veins for four hours three times a week?  Isn't refusing to 'eat' that 'food' also suicide?  Both eating and dialysis are artificial, in that both require considerable expense, effort, and human intervention to occur; neither is a process governed automatically by the nervous system like shivering in the cold or breathing.

I would say that stopping dialysis is clearly suicide in the case of a person who knows he cannot survive without it, but so what?  Your life belongs to you, and when you rationally determine that the cost of each day in discomfort, inconvenience, pain, and the endurance of meaninglessness is greater than the benefits of whatever good things are likely to happen, then it is just common sense to kill yourself.  The only exception I can think of would be the case where some other people were dependent on your continued existence to an extraordinary degree; but in most cases, no one has a right to force another person to endure an unhappy life just because it would be of some benefit to the person compelling another to live.  Your personal priorities have the highest status possible in a society of ethical interdependencies when it comes to deciding whether your own life is worth continuing.

[lost sheep]

So before medical science, when a person,.....lets say looses their kidney function for example,....and becomes ill resulting in death,....that was not suicide.  Right?  But.....since man and science and dialysis machines.....now it is killing yourself?  What a joke.  Man does not determine what constitutes "sin" does he?  Who died and made you in charge?  If it is true that because one do not uses mans machines to continue to exist then one is committing suicide, I guess all of the people on breathing machines and such life support are suicidal.  When they made their living wills and decided to "pull the plug" at some point, they became suicidal.  Nobody here is talking about blowing their head off or slitting their wrists or overdosing of any kind.  Life, ability to breath for free is how it has always been.  You have to pay for medical science.  What about the extremely poor people without the means for treatment?  Should they do anything they can (rob a bank) to survive, and if they fail to do so they then are suicidal?  There are many things a human can do to stay alive but choosing not to doesn't make them a killer.

[Zach]

I think stauffenberg makes a very good point.  Yes folks, I do agree with his premise.

The only thing I would argue is from this comment:

But what if you need special 'food' to live, such as dialysate slowing through your veins for four hours three times a week?

Dialysate should never flow through your veins.  That would be manslaughter.