The dog was diagnosed with an inoperable facial tumor, esthesioneuroblastoma, a rare form of cancer. Over the course of the next decade the tumor would burrow through the sinuses and nasal cavities, causing enormous swelling and facial distortion from inside to the point of forcing one or both of the eye sockets out of the head completely.
The pain would be excruciating.
I know there are pet owners and dog lovers that read my blog. And I know that Poodles recently had to make the decision to put one of her oldest dog down.
No creature deserves to suffer this hideous fate and any person with compassion wouldn't allow there dog to go through that growing agony, worsening day by day.
Except the diagnosis wasn't given to a dog. It was given to Chantel Sebire, a 52 year old French woman.
She has a pleasant smile and bright eyes, and looks like the kind of nice lady you'd see working in an office somewhere.
But what she has gone through for the last EIGHT YEARS with the condition I described up above is horrific. The poor lady has suffered unimaginable pain as her face was twisted and distorted by the tumor.
Morphine, which could have been used for pain relief, had side-effects that were worse than the pain.
On Monday, a court in the city of Dijon rejected Sebire's request to be allowed to receive a lethal dose of barbiturates under a doctor's supervision.
It refused the request for doctor-assisted suicide because of French law and out of concern for medical ethics.
We will put our pets "out of their misery" but not allow the same for a fellow human being.
And what really shits me is their "concern for medical ethics". WTF? Were they just curious to see how big the tumor would get? How much pain a person can handle before going stark raving mad? What about "do no harm"??? Well that tumor was harming on a moment by moment basis. If you can't remove it, and the patient, coherent and in her right mind, is pleading with you to end it, how can you look at her and say "no!"?????????
LOOK AT HER!
She was turned into a Cantina patron because "medical ethics" and French law demanded it. Not only was her face disfigured and causing her agony, she was also blind and could not smell or taste. Of her condition as of February 28th she said, "Some of my bones are eaten into. I don't have upper and lower jaws anymore,".
What quality of life did she have?
When she received the news on Monday, Chantel refused to take no for an answer. She said she would not appeal the decision rendered Monday and that she would find life-terminating drugs through other means.
"I now know how to get my hands on what I need and if I don't get it in France, I will get it elsewhere," she said.
Chantal Sebire was found dead in her apartment on Wednesday afternoon, leaving behind 3 children aged 29, 27 and 13.
She was FOUND. She didn't die peacefully with her children around her, under a doctor's care and supervision. She was found. Alone in her apartment. Presumably by her own choice. Certainly alone.
7 comments:
How horrible are we as a species that we use myth and superstition to perpetuate suffering?
"Thou shalt not kill"
But feel free to stand by and watch as a person is slowly tortured to death by a group of malignant cells.
This is a travesty! This poor woman suffered enough, without the added mistreatment of the state and church!
I sincerely wish that we would lose this last superstition. What is the religious rationale,where in scripture does it say that you can not end your life?
Sean: I don't know where it says it, but isn't ironic that this sort of thing happens in the name of religion, yet sanctioned killings like the crusades and the inquisition weren't a problem for the Roman Catholic Church?
Ever watch a pack of wild African Dogs take down a Wildebeest? They take turns chasing it, biting off chunks of its gut and anus whenever they can get a toothsome hold. The animal keeps running frantically, as it slips into paralyzing exhaustion, sometimes after four or five hours of being chased... HOURS.
At some point its guts start spilling out, and the dogs just keep snapping off chunks. The gnu goes into shock, and stands there as they bite and gnaw at its entrails and asshole, until it collapses. Then they start chewing whatever they feel like, but the gnu isn't dead. It's head is up, as a dog gnaws off a piece of the gnu's nose. Finally, its head droops to the ground, and mercifully slips into unconsciousness... heart still beating, pumping its blood out of its body through torn arteries.
Nasty, God, really nasty. Nice Creation. But nothing compared to what Chantel has to go through thanks to religion. Her torture is not hours its, what, many months, perhaps a couple of years. Hey baby, suffering is good. Didn't Jeebus suffer on the cross for your sins.
My ex-wife was Geriatrician. Another Gerry by the name of Dr. Oreopoulos traveled about Canada campaigning that all possible measures should be taken to save a life, regardless of the disease. No DNR orders for anyone. No quietly letting them slip away. You MUST jump on their chest, stick 'em in a heart lung machine, pump 'em full of steroids, pain killers and epinephrine. Anything, as long as they never die.
God gave us medicine so we could keep each other alive --not healthy, not happy, just alive-- and to do otherwise is a profound rejection of God's wisdom, and of the value of the human lives He created. The number of hopelessly diseased people whose suffering Oreopoulos enhanced is in the thousands. What a charitable crusade he pursues.
Nice guy, eh!
What a truly horrific death for the wildebeast. Yikes! That's not something they play up on daytime Animal Planet!
The poor lady suffered for 8 YEARS after initial diagnosis. As her face twisted from the first picture slowly into the second. I feel a huge swell of sympathy for her and disgust for ANY that handled her case and didn't help her.
Dr. Oreo-pus-bag is an evil bastard!!!! Right up there with the doctor's experimenting on Jews in the concentration camps.
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