A Letter from a Patient's Daughter

My mother, Georgia Hansot, died recently in the intensive care unit of a major hospital in the eastern United States. She was 87 years old. This is an account of the 5 days she spent in the hospital from the point of view of her daughter, a 57-year-old professional woman who was charged with her mother's power of attorney for health care. My intent is to convey the experience of one person thrust into the unfamiliar world of hospital routines and intensive care units. My mother's experience died with her; I can describe only what I experienced and what I understood her to be trying to communicate.

This essay could as easily be entitled “There Are No Villains Here.” Medical personnel, trained to save lives and not to let patients die, exerted themselves to that end. Hospital staff and the families of other patients in the intensive care unit, as time and ability allowed, tried to comfort. Nonetheless, those 5 days were among the loneliest and most disorienting that I have ever experienced.

As I think back on it, I am astounded that I had so little inkling of how hard it would be to help my mother have the death she wanted. A widow of 6 years, my mother had retained the no-nonsense attitude of her Kansan farming origins. She lived in an affluent and stable community on the east coast, and she saw her physician of 25 years routinely for checkups. When we talked together about how she wanted to die, she was clear, consistent, and matter-of-fact. She hoped for a swift death and wanted no unnecessary prolongation of her life.

Entrusted with a general power of attorney and a power of attorney for health care, I believed that I could make decisions on her behalf as she …