Op-ed:
The Battle Between God and Medicine...Part 2 of 2
By: Diane Sori / The Patriot Factor / Contributions by Craig Andresen / Right Side Patriots on americanpbn.com/

In Part 1 of this two-part series (http://thepatriotfactor.blogspot.com/2016/05/op-ed-battle-between-god-and-medicine.html) I spoke of the road we all must travel on when our life comes to an end...a road of good intentions that at times goes horribly wrong. Telling the story of my mom's recent passing, I pointed out the quandary in how our loved ones are forced to leave this world...many if not most times with it not being the peaceful death that the movies so love to portray, but instead in agony and pain leaving death as a welcome respite from unbearable suffering for both the one dying and for those left behind who are witness to said suffering. I spoke of 'Hospice' and their good intentions, but intentions that can only go so far because they are mired down in religious tenets and secular legalities that turn death at times into the stuff of one's worst nightmare, instead of it being the bridge to becoming one with God.

At the end of Part 1, I also hinted at the true reason...a reason beyond religious dogma and legalities countless pages long...as to why our civilized society makes the act of dying so hard to take...and it boils down to six simple words...dying in America is big business.

Let's start with some basic facts about 'Hospice'...this country's main organization serving as the bridge between end-of-life care and a hoped for peaceful death. America's hospice industry has grown over the past decade and a half into a $17 billion a year for-profit industry. This mostly now for-profit industry...an industry that was once the dominion of community and religious organizations...will see almost half of all Americans of retirement age using their services and feeding their coffers before death. And while Medicare and most private insurance companies do cover all if not at least some of hospice care, not all do, leaving the one dying and/or their family to foot the bill for their own death in some cases. And in the for-profit hospices (please know however that there are some not-for-profit hospices still in existence but that their numbers are dwindling rapidly) there is a strong economic incentive to provide less care because they get paid a flat daily fee from Medicare for each of their patients...meaning the fewer services they provide, the higher their profit margin.

A good business practice perhaps, but the stuff of nightmares for those whose services they so desperately need.

And this I can attest to personally for while my mom lay dying in a hospice room at the hospital she was in...we were visited by a for-profit private hospice staff member just once a day with the hospice nurse staying the least amount of time, and with the hospice chaplain staying the longest amount of time. In fact, no one from hospice was there when my mom actually passed away, and it was I, her daughter, who had to pronounce my own mother dead, and it was I who had to go to the nurse's station to tell them that my mom was gone. Holding my mother's hand as she slipped away gasping for breath as she tried to say something but couldn't should not be my last memory of my mother yet it is because this hospice group was spread too thin with not enough staff to attend to all the dying entrusted to their care that day.

Do I blame hospice for what happened at 12:15am on April 8th of this year...no I do not as my mom's fate was sealed 40+ years ago when she was first diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, but I do blame the general way our loved ones are forced to travel that road 'home'...a road mired down in hospital and governmental red tape and legalities that do not allow us to determine the time and mode of our own deaths. My mom knew her time was coming to an end almost a year ago when she said that when the time was right...when she could not take the ravages Parkinson's placed upon her body any longer...that she would stop taking her 22 pills a day...her choice...her wish...and a few months ago she started doing just that. However, due to the 'miracles' of modern medicine, patients like my mom when they are rushed to the hospital are made to suffer in vain attempts to prolong the life they no longer want, because our collective mindset is that we must do everything to postpone death. To postpone death...to postpone becoming one with God...is not only hurting people it is actually slapping God in the face.

The last two weeks of my mother's life were spent in the hospital where the doctors tried without success to get her to swallow pills she could no longer swallow, as pneumonia and sepsis ate away at what was left of her. And yet as my father, brother, and I all begged the doctors to end this nightmare, their medical intervention by law continued on until finally even the doctors saw they could do no more. And so her last five days on this Earth were spent in hospice care as the bills for her dying grew higher and higher...bills we were covered for but bills which someone in the end has to pay...and that someone as always comes full-circle back to we taxpayers.

And this has nothing to do with hospice care or lack thereof but has everything to do with U.S. hospitals having doubled or even tripled their number of ICU beds, thus spending and charging insurance companies and Medicare an inordinate amount of money on the last hopeless months, weeks, days, or even hours of someone's life, and the worst thing of all is that this is the kind of care that most people do not want.

So, the bottom line is that...as was in my mother's case...we are not prolonging life...we are prolonged death and denying the dying their right to be one with God. And why...for the almighty dollar is why and for the right of doctors to say that everything medically possible was done to save your loved one's life. Remember, it pays to keep dying patients alive and to keep them undergoing treatment, it does not pay to have them die.

“Financial incentives built into the programs that most often serve people with advanced serious illnesses — Medicare and Medicaid — encourage providers to render more services and more intensive services than are necessary or beneficial,” were the findings of Dying in America, a September 2014 report issued by the Institute of Medicine.

Now do not get me wrong as I am a staunch supporter of our medical industry and its quest for quality of life especially for the dying, but I know in my heart when it is time to say 'no more.' And while I support both government and private funding for medical research, and I relish in the day when cutting edge stem cell research can be made applicable to cure diseases that once were incurable (like Parkinson's perhaps), I also know that our taxpayer dollars must be wisely spent on the living not on prolonging the life of someone suffering whose sole wish is to be allowed to go 'home.'

And to that end I must say that sometimes doctors themselves are to blame as our medical system in general has been so corrupted by not only the monstrosity known as ObamaCare but by government regulations and watchful eyes that seem to monitor a doctor's every decision basing it solely upon the premise of it being cost prohibited. Patients are rushed to the hospital at the drop of a hat not because a hospital is where they should be, but because a hospital stay racks up big dollars and helps to offset the cost of doctor visits, other medical necessities, and high cost standard and experimental treatments.

Just think how much money could be saved vs a hospital stay or an emergency room visit if doctors just made house calls especially when it involves an elderly and sick patient. I firmly believe that each and every practice should have at least one doctor on staff who makes house calls, and that each doctor in a given practice takes turns doing just that...house calls. Not only would hospital admissions and emergency room visits be cut way down, but doctors would then get to see and access their patients in their own homes, which is critical as one advances in age and when one is reaching the end of one's life. Decisions could then be made by both the doctor and family members who together just might feel that hospital given medical intervention would cause more harm and pain, while knowing that the outcome will be that their loved one is going to die anyway. Letting them die at home or under the auspices of hospice would then become the wise decision.

And while letting someone die with or without medical intervention is not legally the same as assisted suicide, it still would allow for unwanted intervention by family members ill-equipped to spiritually let their loved one go unless it was possible to solicit in writing a person’s preferences for end-of-life care before a life or death crisis occurs. Going beyond the standard legally binding 'do not resuscitate' orders that many older people now have in place, an end-of-life document could lay out the specifics of how and when one wants to die and if any medical intervention is wanted or not. Such a document would become legally binding if witnessed and notarized as per each state's law...that is once laws are put into place and criteria set.

And the critical difference between this type of document and legally assisted suicide...now allowed or being considered in at least seven states...is that no one would have to assist anyone in dying as no one's hand is needed...the person would just pass at the time of God's choosing with no intervention by man or machine allowed. This too would separate it from what we call mercy killings. Could the person's death now be painful and wrought with complications...of course it could...but shouldn't one be allowed to decide their own fate when there is no hope for recovery...I believe they should be afforded that one last act of dignity...that one last all-important decision.

I know my mother wanted to die a painful and agonizing year before she did...she had had enough as her body was overtaken by Parkinson's turning her into but a shadow of her former self. I heard her begging to die as more and more tubes and lines were inserted into her now frail and decaying body, and I heard the doctors saying that legally they could not do what they in their hearts knew should be done. And I heard hospice saying the same thing yet at the same time agreeing with me that the hows of death in America must be changed so that the horrors my mother experienced do not have to happen to anyone else.

And that is something God would want for his children...to come to Him peacefully and of sound mind not in the throws of a morphine induced haze, as they leave behind a worn out body to become one with Him for all eternity. My mother was denied a peaceful passing...morphine is not the peaceful panacea most people think...hopefully in time and with the right legislation put into place others will not meet her fate. And to that end I intend to reach out to any and all legislators on both sides of the aisle...after all dying is not a partisan issue...and try to get them to propose and pass legislation that helps the dying pass on their terms not on ours...not on terms laid out by religious dogma and not on terms dictated by government dollars and cents intervention...but on each persons individual terms that serves both them and their families well.

It's the very least this grieving daughter can do to honor her mother and to help those who come after her in death...a death I pray is more peaceful than the one I just witnessed for like I said in Part 1 of this series, the road to heaven is often, like with the road to hell, paved with good intentions but with good intentions that at times can and do go horribly wrong. But this is a road we can fix and hopefully in time we will as God and medicine need not battle anymore.

Op-ed:
The Battle Between God and Medicine...Part 1 of 2
By: Diane Sori / The Patriot Factor / Contributions By Craig Andresen / Right Side Patriots on americanpbn.com 

In life some roads we travel on we do so with loved ones and friends by our side as those roads traveled have a tangible end. But there is one road we all must travel on that we sadly must do so alone.

And while it's been said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, sometimes the road to heaven is paved with good intentions gone horribly wrong. And those intentions become ever so obvious when it comes time for us to travel that final road on the journey 'home.'

And while some...while many...believe that road must reach its destination only at the time of the Lord's choosing, I for one have come to witness that is not necessarily so for I cannot nor will not accept that the one true loving God of we Christians and Jews condones the suffering of the barely living getting ready to go 'home.'

"It's in God's hands now," the religious say..."God will call them 'home' at the time of His choosing," they add, all while quoting or should I say misquoting tenets and words of dogma about the how and when being according to God's plan alone. But if truth be told what their words really mean is it’s in God’s hands now that we, in all our arrogance and with all our medical know how, can no longer continue to usurp what had all along been the will of God.

And while end of life care inevitably brings about both religious questioning and a deep searching for some semblance of truth, the simple fact is that when a loved one is ready to pass on, many uncomfortable decisions must be made, and many need an excuse or a scapegoat for decisions they themselves are either too uncomfortable with or just too scared to make.

Enter the word's, "It's in God's hands now." 

But no words spoken can explain how a merciful and loving God can allow some to survive and recover while that very same God allows others with the very same disease to suffer and die...is it that sickness and suffering are somehow part of His greater plan? If it is then it's a plan straight from hell as can be witnessed by taking a simple walk through a hospice ward of any hospital. Take that walk with eyes open as you glance at all the suffering and pain not just experienced by the dying, but also by the loved ones soon to be left behind. Look deeply into the eyes of those suffering who have exhausted all medical technology who now have sadly arrived at what was always their inevitable end, and tell me again how this is the greater plan of a merciful and loving God.

I cannot and will not believe this is God's plan for any of his children. Instead I believe this type of death...a death shrouded in pain and suffering...is the failed result of our modern society that has doctors wringing every last breath and every last heartbeat possible from a patient’s dying body long after who that person was has since departed this world.

But what should we, as a civilized society, do in these cases...do we play God and end the pain and suffering by our own hand or do we let nature...do we let God...take its predetermined course as the religious believe.

There has to be a better way that allows for better decisions to be made.

And could that better way perhaps be in our allowing doctors to make end of life decisions...to end the pain and suffering...based solely upon a clinical diagnosis that meets a set number of specific medical criteria coupled with the consent of the patient and/or their loved ones...but wait...the religious will say that we cannot have doctors playing God.

But isn’t playing God exactly what doctors have been forced to do by our modern society having set the bar for doctors at an unattainable high. 'Do No Harm'..the Hippocratic Oath...a promise made that has now translated into doctors being forced to allow patients to linger on and suffer in a prolonged, no 'quality of life' existence...an existence God would have ended long before every bit of medical and pharmaceutical technology was thrown at them...an existence now mired down in of all things...legalities. God, or as I believe the natural course of things, would most definitely have closed the door on certain patient’s lives long before the world of modern medicine and a civilized society said their time is up...long before their existence became just a few extra months, weeks, days, or even mere hours of sometimes unbearable suffering and pain.

And amongst all the legalities and the religious dogma that tears at the heart, certain questions remain, for while we can and do prolong life no matter the pain and suffering involved, what has happened to the all-important question of 'quality of life'...have we as an arrogant society sunk so low as to designate the simple involuntary act of breathing to be 'quality of life'...life lived just to avoid us having to say that final good-bye? And why at the end of life are we more civilized...more humane...with our pets than we are with the people we so loved? And while as a society we mourn the loss of our loved ones with a celebration of their lives, why do we at the same time excuse ourselves and our choices made by pinning our failings on religion...after all "It was God’s plan" becomes our often repeated mantra as we try to remove ourselves from all blame.
                                                                     
"It was God's plan"...four simple words we repeat time and again as we strive to make ourselves believe those words...all while ignoring the fact that if we are to invoke God’s plan at the end of our loved one's life, then we must also invoke God himself in creating the very disease that is taking our loved one from us. And we must also invoke God's name in helping to create the advances in medicine that allows for prolonging life, prolonging suffering, ultimately leading to the death of our loved one who in their death no longer resembles the vital person we once knew. And then, in God’s name, we pat ourselves on the back for our acts of civility and for blindly accepted what is supposed to be God's plan.

Again, there must be a better way...a better way that allows for the natural progression of death to occur, but to occur at the time that death becomes a welcome friend not an enemy to be feared.

Enter center stage 'Hospice'...a highly specialized health care option for those who are faced with no hope of recovery as the end of life draws near...usually in six months time or less...in most cases less...way less. Hospice involves a team of physicians, nurses, hospice aides, clergy, social workers, bereavement counselors, and volunteers who work together to meet the physical, social, emotional, and spiritual needs of each dying patient and their family. With palliative care either given at home, in hospital, in nursing homes, or in special freestanding hospice centers, hospice strives to address the issues most important to the patient’s physical needs while preparing the family for their final good-byes, keeping the focus on improving the person's quality of life for whatever time they have left, thus allowing them to pass with dignity.

To pass with dignity is hospice's hope but not always the reality for in many cases death, even with the aid of hospice, is anything but pretty.

 
Remember, hospice's goal is to improve a patient's quality of life for the time that remains all while allowing nature to take its course...to allow God's will to supersede the will of man and of medicine. This means that hospice does not treat the disease the patient is dying from... simply, the patient is made as comfortable as possible while their body naturally shuts down...shuts down as morphine or other opiates tries to alleviate any pain they may be experiencing. And many times that shutting down means no food or even water is given...translation: hospice is not for the faint of heart for death does not come easy nor pain free for many.

And while hospice provides a valuable service to many, hospice has its hands tied as well for hospice can do more to end the suffering of both the patient and their loved ones, that is if the legalities of death and the dogma of the religious could be put aside for the betterment of the person dying and for those left behind.

Let me tell you a story...a true story with an anything but happy ending as I just personally witnessed hospice in action with the recent death of my mother. Diagnosed young with Parkinson's disease...the same disease that actor Michael J. Fox is battling and will in the end lose...Parkinson's has but one outcome...death...a most horrific and gruesome death that many say is worse than the ravages of cancer for Parkinson's ravages the body but leaves the mind for the most part intact. In other words, the Parkinson's patient is aware of every change their body is going through...is aware of what horrors are to come next.

My mother battled Parkinson's for 40+ years and for the first 30 of those years medicine kept it in check and one would barely, if ever, notice that she had a disease that there was no cure for. Thanks to medical science my mom got to raise her family, see her children marry, and have children of their own...in other words my mom got to see the cycle of life continue on. But her last 10 years or so saw Parkinson's take over as she progressed through manageable stage 2 through needing full-time aides in stage 4, sometimes with the disease slowing for a bit, but then going full throttle into end-stage 5 over these past few months as her ability to walk, sit, move, and most horribly of all...to swallow...was taken away from her.

When one cannot swallow the 22 pills that has to be taken each day in order to live, and when one cannot move any part of their body without agonizing pain, pneumonia and sepsis sets in...and when one cannot swallow even a sip of water medical intervention has for all intents and purposes ended, the doctor signs off with the family's permission, and hospice takes over. And while I have high praise for hospice in general and for all who attended my mother, I do have to say once again that hospice can do more when the pain and suffering reaches a point that it has become nothing but a living hell.

And while some will not like what I am going to say it still must be said...as I believe hospice must be legally allowed to turn up the morphine drip thus ending the hell on Earth for our loved ones. This would take but a few seconds, and in my family's case would have spared my mother from five days of a living hell as well as spared our family the specifics of watching our mother and my father's beloved wife gasp for every breath, moan if even gently touched, drown in her own secretions, and die from starvation and thirst...yes starvation and thirst...for the truth is that for the five days my mom was in hospice she was not allowed even a sip of water for fear of aspiration causing more suffering without medical intervention being allowed. And it must be understand by all that once hospice is called in medical intervention ceases in full.

Is this really how we want our loved ones to journey 'home'...yet this is how many are dying throughout our country simply because the religious have dictated what the legalities of life and death should and should not be. Shouldn't we...the doctors and/or the family...be allowed to 'pull the plug' so to speak...just as we do for our cherished animals...when no hope whatsoever of survival is at hand...shouldn't the family be allowed to say our goodbyes to the person when they are still conscious and know we are there by their side instead of them being unconscious, drugged-up, and in reality alone in their death...that would be the humane and civilized thing to do yet that is what we are not allowed to do.

Sadly, death and dying in America is big business with end of life care not only becoming a matter of professional commitment coupled with responsibility, but of dollars and cents as well, all while the true wishes of the family are for the most part ignored. As my mother lay dying...as her body rotted from within...we begged and pleaded with both the doctors and with hospice for it to end not for our sake but for hers. When the unconscious cry through the pain they still feel...when they begged to die while still of this world...to be free of the physical horrors consuming them...we are legally forced to sit back and watch as the morphine is upped a bit at a time until their heart can take no more...and in my mom's case it took five long days of hell.

This, in a word, is cruel...cruel to the point that no one of faith should abide this as it goes against everything we believe our God would condone for isn't the basis of faith to be one with God...yet how can you be one with God when you are cursing Him for allowing this suffering to continue.

And this is cruel for nonbelievers as well for suffering becomes pain personified, and it is inbred in the human condition that suffering must be alleviated by any means humanly possible, yet we allow our loved ones to suffer and linger on as we fear the legalities that come with someone's passing by a human hand.

And so while the pain is finally over for my mom, my family's final memories of her are one of unbearable pain and suffering...pain and suffering that did not have to happen as there are better ways to leave this world and be one with God if only religious dogma and legalities were set aside for the good of not only the dying but of the ones left behind in their grief.

In Part 2 of this two-part series I will touch upon how legally a true death with dignity can be achieved while at the same time letting the dying be one with God as they travel on the final road 'home.'

Op-ed...

One of the many ugly truths about ObamaCare

(Dori's Journey Home)
By: Diane Sori

A few weeks ago I told you about a dear friend of mine who has glioblastoma...brain cancer.

Yesterday I was with her when her doctor give her the horrific news that she has two to six weeks left of life...probably closer to two. 

So because of the 12-week bureaucratic delay in getting her insurance company to approve further treatment...paperwork delays that are the hallmark of ObamaCare ...her brain tumor had time to grow much larger and in fact to multiply, in addition to sending 'feelers' deep into her brain. There is NO hope, NO cure, and NO miracles as her brain... the very essence of who she is...is being 'eaten up' as it necroses. And again, thanks to ObamaCare, there is NO true quality of life for her remaining days but I, and another good friend, will be by my dear friend's side helping her husband make her passage 'home' as peaceful and painless as humanly possible.

 
And something every single person in this country needs to know, as many are facing serious illnesses that will need Hospice in the end, is that thanks to ObamaCare certain insurance companies participating in the exchanges...even if the dying person holds those company's policies privately... will only provide 15-days of round-the-clock end of life nursing care. This means that if God forbid you cannot get an extension, your loved one will be left on the own with NO one to help with specialized professional end-stage palliative care.

And as we all know NOTHING in this life is written in stone for what is expected to be two weeks of life could stretch out to four weeks...and then what. So to Barack HUSSEIN Obama, 'Prince' Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and all their Congressional ilk...especially the idiot Democrats who voted for this monstrosity before they even read it...and back to Harry Reid again who said these cancer horror stories were made up lies...I hope you all rot in hell...period.