At age 86, my father had survived both colon cancer and a stroke that left him with aphasia. His mind was sharp, though, and he wasn't depressed. A crack bridge player with a passion for Italian restaurants, he was popular at his assisted living facility even though he couldn't speak much. He told me he'd lived a good life and wasn't afraid of dying, and he didn't want to go through any more medical trauma. No chemo, no radiation, no surgeries, no treatment.
His advance directive read DNR and DNI — do not resuscitate, do not intubate. No one would break his ribs doing CPR or make bruises bloom along his arms trying to find a vein. As his health-care proxy, I was completely on board. I'd read Sherwin Nuland's "How We Die," Atul Gawande's "Being Mortal," Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's "On Death and Dying." Comfort would be the priority and any pain would be "managed," which I assumed meant erased.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/whats-a-good-death-its-not-quite-the-peaceful-drifting-off-id-imagined-for-my-dad/2019/09/27/f754c4cc-cf35-11e9-87fa-8501a456c003_story.html?
