I wrote this in a fictional story, and someone who read it said that I really shouldn't have the character say that he died of AIDS when he really died of AIDS related pneumonia. I was just wondering how other people would have phrased it and if other people would be bothered by it.
You should go back to that person and check if there's something real that is "dying of AIDS". If there is, then change the wording.
If there isn't, and I don't think there is, then all AIDS related deaths are due to "complications arising from having AIDS", which means that "dying of AIDS" is just a shorter way of saying "dying from complications b/c of having AIDS".
AIDS is a syndrome, a collection of problems and potential problems, but no matter what problem causes a death, it goes back to that, so I see NO problem with saying it the way you said it.
Now, I imagine that if someone is a biased, bigoted, jerk, they could find a way of saying "oh he died of AIDS" in a nasty way, that wouldn't come out the same if they use complications instead. So I wonder if the critic isn't thinking of that...which might just be the way they are hearing it in their head, but as you can see, no one else here heard it the same way.
He died of cardiac arrest, because that's pretty much what everyone dies of.
My late DFIL died of cardiac arrest brought on by kidney failure brought on by chemotherapy for his cancer.
He died of cancer. If he hadn't had cancer, he wouldn't have had chemo which wouldn't have caused kidney failure.
Hmm. I'd call that a chemotherapy-related death, not cancer. Not everyone has chemo, and chemo causes many problems on its own, so I'm calling that a chemotherapy problem.
My father had pancreatic cancer, it wasnt the cancer that killed him, it was the doses of morphine they gave him to provide relief from pain.His heart stopped. Not due to cancer, but the overdose if you will, of morphine.
Kinda the same theory.
His death certificate reads cardiac arrest, basically that his heart stopped.
Causes of death are interesting.
If someone had alzheimer's disease and refused to eat, basically starving themselves, the death cert would not say Alzheimer's disease.
Does this make sense? Causes of death are listed as what ULTIMATELY killed the individual. Not a disease they have.
Not in every case.
My mom died b/c she bled out suddenly after coughing, b/c of a missed diagnosis of a bleeding ulcer, made horribly horribly worse b/c of the drugs she was being given while in remission from leukemia.
Her death certificate reads leukemia.
But it was NOT leukemia that did her in, it was the blood thinners. No blood thinners, no bleeding out. Even my aunt was taken in by that. Said "Oh Molly, that happens to people with leukemia often". I said that it doesn't, b/c it's the blood thinners, not the actual disease.
And if it had been the leukemia, then the MDs would have continued to bill for the "care" they "provided" while they ignored a month of brand new symptoms which all screamed "losing blood for some reason, please pay attention and figure out where it's going". Instead they said that it was normal and due to the chemo, though she wasn't undergoing chemo at that time, and she hadn't had any of the symptoms during her 3 rounds of it. My stepdad wrote the MDs a letter explaining all of that to them, and asking why they were billing when it was THEIR fault for missing it, and they stopped billing. Even stopped billing insurance.
But anyway, it's not always that the thing that ultimately caused the death that goes on the death certificate. My mom being the case in point.
