Thank God.

The decision was fast and correct. I'm sad for his wife, I really am, but what she was doing was not what her husband wanted and was only prolonging the inevitable, and since he cannot communicate the level of his suffering is unknown. Doctors can only estimate pain relief drug dosages and have to rely on educated, compassionate guesswork - but it's still guesswork. I learned this on the front line. We did the living will thing, I had the POA, been there, did this. You have to respect your spouse's wishes and trust your gut - would you want to be the one in that bed, or are you keeping him alive for YOUR needs? The end was bad enough without adding machines. Now keep this poor man free from pain and let him go, please.

And may the lawyer that took her case break out in a nasty rash. Sometimes a client needs to be told she's wrong to try to do what she's doing - I wonder who turned her down before she found someone to take it? (This is my local legal turf here, I don't know everybody but I know a lot of them.) I haven't seen the lawyer's name in print yet, and right now I'm too tired to care. I'm just glad the outcome was in favor of allowing people to die when it's their time.

Just BTW, this is not some oddball "Liberal Catholic" POV, I'm mainstream with this. The priests who counseled me and my husband were totally supportive and on the same page. Ending life before its time is wrong, but keeping someone alive with machines in the face of a progressive and terminal condition, or massive brain damage where the machines are providing all autonomic functions and there's no rational hope of anything working on its own, is also wrong. There are other gray areas where I have my opinions and other people differ, but this wasn't one of them.

Enough of this depressing stuff, I'm going to go plug along on the cardigan and go to bed really early - tomorrow's a short work day, then four days off! Whoo-wee!