When my 9 year old daughter passed away almost 2 years ago, the doctors gave her a large dose of morphine....by that time she had been in the PICU for almost 3 months.. They were pulling blood out of her ET tube. My husband and I called a meeting with the doctors and asked if she was ever going to able to live off of the machines (dialysis, over 15 medicine pumps etc.) He said no. When I asked what happened next, he told me that we could wait for her to die, or they could give her morphine and make her passing peaceful. Although it was the hardest decision we have made, and at the time it felt like we essentially took her life, it was also the best for her. She was a heart transplant patient and had lived a glorious life, but still the thought of waking up and her not being there is hard. I am so very thankful that she was not in pain anymore and passed peacefully instead of her family having to watch her suffer through the pain of death...
My thoughts are with all of those here who have lost someone. We may have lost them due to different circumstances, but the pain of losing them is still very much the same.