Re: What happens with No inteventions?
My wife opted for no interventions whatsoever. She had the most peaceful and dignified passing as a result.
My wife was a doctor for 20 years. Like many doctors, she chose not to be sustained artificially. No tubes, no feeding, no IV, no oxygen or forced ventilation. She did allow ONE tube once she was completely and forever confined to bed--a catheter so that we would not have to clean up any pee.
Her ALS had a very rapid progression. It was all over--from first symptom to death--in less than one year. At the end, she had lost every one of her muscles, including her lungs, face, and eyes. On her last day, she could not move her eyeballs or blink on purpose to communicate. I had to constantly put drops into her eyes to prevent her eyeballs from drying out and causing her pain. She was totally and completely locked in.
I'm very happy she chose to go without interventions. If she had opted to keep her body alive longer with feeding and breathing support, then she would have been living for who knows how long, completely limp in all muscles, unable to communicate even by blinking. I cannot imagine a more tortured way of living. Fortunately she died within 24 hours of being totally locked in.
We had hospice in home and morphine in the refrigerator. She had ordered that, whenever she showed signs of air hunger, we were NOT to increase her air, but instead, we were to give her more morphine. As a result, she never felt the fear and panic of air hunger and she was allowed to die in peace. During the last few minutes of her passing, she was surrounded by her family, 3 sisters, nieces, brother, husband and children and we held her hand until her heartbeat faded.