Parents wont unplug Life Support on Brain Dead Child

I found it interesting that you wrote this. You had written on the issue of how anyone could know for certain if you were killed instantly. How would weknow the end was really the end and such. This talk here touches me deeply and I have the answer you seek. As you know, My Sheila was very sick for a large portion of our love together. She spent Years in hospitals, dieing they said to me. 15 times over 24 years I had been told she would not make it through the night. I got called at 2 and 3 in the morning more times than I can recall {not true...I remember every single time} to tell me to get to the hospital as she would not live through the night. 14 times... she proved them very wrong. At times, she didn't move except when the nurses turned her. Many times she didn't even know I was at her side physically but inside of her, I know she felt me, knew I was there. Two times over the years, she was in a coma, once for 65 days and once for 31 days. I never left her side except to eat or use the restroom. Friends and family would ask me from time to time why I didn't "pull the plug?" The very question you are asking concerning the boy and his parents. I sympathize with them and my heart understands where they are. I don't know if we share the same reasons. I can only speculate. But I do know my reasons. I would sit beside her hour on hour, the only sounds in the room being the inhale/exhale of the machines that were keeping her alive. {{God this is harder than I thought to write today}}} Those sounds were my constant companion and the comfort that she was still with me, somewhere there inside her mind. They would come in and touch their little meter to her temple and watch to see if she felt the shock. Determine how far away she was. Sometimes, she was a very long ways from us. I would read books to her and sing songs to her. I had only my heart to tell me she was hearing them. But I continue to do this because there was always that chance. Why didn't I pull the plug? Because in my heart, what IF the day after they shut her life-support off, they found a cure or a way to give her life back? No tubes, no trache, no constant mechanical breathing to lull me to sleep at her bedside. What if I shut her chances off just as she was about to wake? And the very thought that somewhere deep inside of her mind, she might hear me or feel me say "Do it", took the breath and life right out of me. She DID wake both times, even though they gave her a 5% chance of surviving. The first time, she came home and we had another 2 years together.We lived again. We laughed and smiled and hugged and Loved for two years after they said she would not live more than a week. The second time, she woke again, we were given 5 months together. She told me she remembered hearing me sing but not the reading. She said she always seem to know that I was there. Sheila went to heaven on March 8th, 2006 after a 24 year battle with more illnesses than I need mention here. But 2 times, asked to pull the plug, I said no and she was with us for another season. Why don't they pull the plug????? Because our hearts always, always want to believe that there is chance that our loved one will "wake up." So, we sit with them, hour after hour, day after day and year after year, listening to the sounds of machinery and bells and alarms that we don't even look up at anymore. I heard her say "I love you forever and I dont hurt now." I heard the sounds of the inhale/exhale. But the scariest and the biggest reason I didn't say "Do it" was the frightening sound of silence that fell on the room when the machines were finally silenced for good. I asked that the machines stay on for 20 minutes after they said she was gone. Why??? I will maybe never know. I hope this helps you understand WHY we don't "Unplug." Always, Darrel

Forgive my confusion with religious people but this is an example where it seems like THEY are braindead, not their child. Another example is a certain religious group who will not allow blood or blood products to be given. Since I do believe in 'A god' (whomever you believe it is), I have a hard time believing that this power would want someone to either artificially extend physical life while the brain and soul is GONE, or to withhold a lifesaving procedure (like accepting a unit of blood or plasma or whatever) and let the person DIE just because of religion.

That is such a shame. They need to get that poor child off of life support.

I know, it is a very touchy subject and I think the courts should just intervene now and order that the system be taken away.

Losing a child is one of the hardest things a parent can possible imagine.....another hard thing to do is to see them hurting...in pain physically or emotionally. It would take me a while also to let go.....but I believe in quality of life....and I personally don't want to live if I have to suffer or don't have quality of life....the ability to life normally or close to it.

It's not an easy thing to handle by watching your own child lying motionless on the bed. More over to unplug the life supporting machine and watched him die. It's easy said than done but it's really up to the parents to decide. No matter how much a parent loves their child, they also are not willing to sit and watch him suffer. They just need some time to think and consider things before taking the final step. Pray that for those having to go through this - be strong.

That is so sad. I could not keep my child on life support unless there was hope that he or she would recover.

Why is it that we pay lip service to the concept of "it's up to the parents", but as soon as parents decide differently than what we would choose, we attack them? It is their right, leave them to it.

I don't think that it is euthanasia here. I like the Catholic church;s teaching on this subject. The Catholic Church teaches that we need to take care of life and that nobody should take his or her own life nor that of the others. But it does not impose on use to take extraordinary treatment. A treatment which involves great pain and does not offer us hope to get well. © ronaldinu 2008