An Oregon family said they are choosing to honor their terminally-ill daughter’s end-of-life wish not to seek medical assistance if her condition worsens.
The family of a five-year-old girl who is dying from an incurable neurodegenerative disease are allowing her to decide whether to seek medical treatment or to die if her condition worsens.
Julianna Snow is dying from Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, which effects the nervous system, making movement in her legs and arms, as well as swallowing and breathing, difficult at times, CNN reported.
The young girl has been treated repeatedly at the hospital for infections and currently uses a breathing mask. Her parents, Steve Snow and Michelle Moon, have been warned that while their daughter is stable now, she will continue to get weaker and be in more pain.
Moon, a Vancouver neurologist, talked to her daughter about whether or not she wanted to return to the hospital the next time something happened to her.
"Very clearly, my daughter was telling me that getting more time at home with her family was not worth the pain of going to the hospital again," Michelle Moon said of her daughter to CNN.
"I made sure she understood that going to heaven meant dying and leaving this Earth," Moon continued. "And I told her that it also meant leaving her family for a while, but we would join her later. Did she still want to skip the hospital and go to heaven? She did."
Moon has had many conversations with patients about end-of-life decisions, but found little information about how to talk to a young person about their choices. That's why, after Moon talked to her daughter in May, she wanted to share on her blog her daughter's difficult decision.
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/1RdAG2x
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