I think a lot depends upon "how terminal". My mother had advanced metastatic breast cancer when she developed an acute kidney infection with septic shock. The day before she and I were out shopping and although she had some "inconveniences", she enjoyed her life. I rushed her to the ER and during the intake process, she dropped her blood pressure and emergency procedures were initiated. With IVs, IV steroids, antibiotics, she was quickly stabilized and was awaiting a bed in ICU. The urologist who was covering called me into the hall and said, "She has advanced cancer, you know this isn't a bad way to go". He was right in the sense that it wasn't an "uncomfortable" way to go but, it wasn't HER time to go. I looked him in the eye and said quite emphatically; "My mother was shopping with me yesterday and if you do your job, she will be shopping with me next week, which means to me, she doesn't leave this department without a defibrillator on the bed". The question always arises, "how iminently terminal"? The ICU doc came down and asked my mother about advanced directives. She looked him in the eye and said; "You know, if I wanted to die I would have stayed home". Everyone got a good chuckle out of that. She spent 4 days in ICU, keeping an eye on the UConn girls basketball championship game, another couple of days in a step down unit and she went home to enjoy her life for almost another year. Life support should be available to transistion a person back to their lives, no matter how long or how little time that person has left.
