Dying a Painful Death from Cancer...Is there an alternative?

Death. Sometimes it feels like I'm swimming in a pool of it when I'm at work. My job is at a medical facility and I work in oncology. The type of cancer I deal with is particularly devastating, having only about a forty percent survival rate on a good day.

Yes, the loss of patients whom I've gotten to know over weeks and sometimes months, is heartbreaking. What tends to be even more overwhelming (and really pisses me off!), however, is the watching (and often being forced to participate in) the emotional roller coaster ride that the family goes through. This mostly happens when a patient is not doing well. And it's even worse when neither the family, nor the patient were prepared for the possibility of death.

I see time and time again family members and friends not respecting the patient's right to die with dignity. The patients have often fought for months, sometimes years and are usually tired of fighting. But the family can't let them go. So they insist that we, as medical professionals, do everything possible to keep them alive. Until a patient has lost the mental capacity to make their own decisions we are supposed to honor whatever the patient wants, even if the family disagrees. But, once that capacity is gone (such as s/he is in a coma), the next of kin or health care proxy get's to make the decisions and we can only hope that the patient's wishes will be honored.

But, my question to the family and the medical community at large is this: Is it really living? When someone is in pain and sick and tired and has, barring a miracle, no chance of getting better, is simply making their heart beat and their lungs move enough to count as life? I don't think it's intentional but I think that when the end of life of a loved one nears, we suddenly decide that we must preserve our loved one's life at all costs, as if the quantity of days on earth is more important than the quality of life being lived during that time.

Why? It seems so obvious that a person should have the right to die without pain and with dignity, meaning without tubes down their throats or machines for them to breathe. So why wouldn't a loved one want that for the patient?

Guilt.

That's my answer. Our society puts so much pressure on us to live forever. It's no wonder that a patient's child, if s/he is the health care proxy, would feel as if they were the one KILLING their parent should they not tell us "Do everything you can." I don't think they really want them to suffer. They just don't want to feel they are culpable for their parent's death.

My, albeit unsolicited, advice to anyone who is a loved one of someone who is tired of suffering from a disease that will kill them in the short term anyway is this:
STOP MAKING IT ABOUT YOU! Spend as much time as you can with him/her and, when the disease takes over and is clearly going to win, don't make him/her suffer in pain and desperation the last few moments of his/her life. I'm not saying you should facilitate their death...I am saying that, 1) Make sure s/he is comfortable and 2) If something happens that would end the life without drastic intervention (such as the heart stopping), let them go this way. How much more peaceful it will be for him/her to die suddenly and pain-free...with dignity.