PART
III. PAIN CONTROL, NURSING HOME,
FINANCIAL LIMITS, & MEDICAL INFORMATION
Questions
7: If your are in serious pain, what do you want done?
Medical science has made very important advances
in
the control of pain since the 1800s,
when
even surgery had to be performed without anesthesia.
And
we can expect even further advances in the 21st century.
It
would be ideal if we could prevent all pain
while
at the same time having conscious, meaningful lives.
Medical science has now created anesthesia
that
permit extensive cutting of our bodies
without
us having even a moment of conscious pain.
These
drugs put us into a profound state of unconsciousness,
deeper
than we would ever experience normally in our lives.
No
sound, no pain, nothing will awaken us from that sleep.
But nothing else is happening in our brains either.
We
have no consciousness of anything.
Even
dreams are completely absent.
But
our bodies can be kept alive during surgery.
And
then after a period of a few hours,
the
drugs can be reversed, permitting us to return to consciousness.
We
retain all the memories we had before we were 'put under'.
We welcome this marvelous ability of modern science.
But
we would probably not want to be permanently unconscious,
under
the power of an anesthetic for the rest of our natural lives.
So
we must balance pain-control and conscious life.
In answering this Question about pain control,
you
might consider how many hours of each day
you
would find minimum
for having a meaningful life.
And
if all of your conscious moments were filled with pain,
you
might find that an intolerable way to live.
Pain
can force all your projects into the background.
Perhaps
you would accept pain-control as a temporary measure
—for
a period of weeks even—
if
going thru medical treatment can restore meaningful life.
How
much pain would you find tolerable?
At
what point would pain-control measures render your life meaningless?
QUESTION
7:
PAIN
CONTROL
by JAMES
PARK
103
The selection above is the beginning of Question 7 from the book:
Your
Last
Year: Creating Your Own Advance Directive for Medical Care.
If you click
this title, you will see
the complete table of contents.
This discussion of pain-control is 3 pages long.
If you
would like to see one person's Answer to this Question,
go to James
Park's Advance Directive for Medical Care.
Scroll down to Answer 7.