News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Smoking has long-term effects on the immune system. Parent comment

Re:Smoking has long-term effects on the immune system by JackMorgan on Friday February 16, 2024 @05:37PM (#39403928)
The rib breaking is very real. And 93% of the time it only traumatizes the giver and adds more suffering to the receiver who dies anyway. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/05/29/1177914...

There are also "humans are space orcs" devices like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ventricular_assist_device that can keep blood circulating even when the heart cannot.

Or this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_positive_airway_pre... that can push all the blood in your lungs from congestive heart failure back into your arteries, only for the lungs to start to slowly fill again, drowning them slowly.

Not saying these measures are bad or that we should withhold care, but there is very much an attitude of "keep alive at all costs" to modern medicine that can be hard to witness and potentially traumatizing for caregivers.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Smoking has long-term effects on the immune system by tejohnso on Saturday February 17, 2024 @09:54AM (#39409948)
With a terminal family member, what I found counterintuitive was that we had to take measures to avoid insane practices rather than the practitioners having to ask before doing something insane.
[ Parent | on HN ]