The doctors have now told him that he may die from the blood clot. Is this right, letting a man suffer painfully through treatments and then die anyway?.
There is a similar situation that Huttmann describes in her essay. Huttmann tells of a man by the name of Mac, who was a strong young man that went to the doctor, because of a little cough, but it turned out to be much worse (Huttmann para 4). Mac had lung cancer and was placed in the ICU where Huttmann, a registered nurse, worked (Huttmann para 5). She watched as this vital young man became a frail and weak bag of bones (Huttmann para 6). Mac began to have episodes where he would stop breathing. The nurse on duty would then press a "code blue" button and a team of professionals would rush in to the room to save him (Huttmann para 6). Then after the team started his heart again, Huttmann was left to watch for the next time that Mac would stop breathing (Huttmann para 6). .
How could this have kept up for so long? Why was Mac not given a DNR (do not resuscitate) order? These were the questions that Huttmann asked herself everyday, as she watched Mac beg for mercy and end his suffering (Huttmann para 5). What would be the difference of letting Mac die at home without medication or medical intervention and Huttmann not pushing the "code blue" button? Why is the latter a crime? An article called, "Suicide Facts, Assisted Suicides Euthanasia and Terminal Illness", by Geo Stone, tells that "In the United States, treatment-refusal is the only legally-protected method for choosing death", only after the patients have been determined legally competent (Stone para 32). Maybe early on in his cancer treatment, when Mac was "legally competent", he should have stated in writing that he was not to be resuscitated. Doing so would have created less controversy over his death. Although, who is to say that by Huttmann not pushing the "code blue" button she was murdering him? Did Mac then not die of natural causes instead of unnatural?.
