Torch, Spring/Summer 2007

10 TORCH T ough C hoices at the E nd of L ife by Susan Salladay, RN, Ph.D. J enna is a 34-year-old mentally challenged woman who, 12 years ago, was told by her doctor that she has multiple sclerosis. Jenna is unmarried and lives with her mother, her sole caregiver, in a small home in a rural community. In the past year Jenna has had four bouts of pneumonia, each requiring hospitalization. She has several deep skin ulcers that will not heal, due to her confinement to a wheelchair. Both Jenna and her mother are Christian believers, but over the past year Jenna has become increasingly depressed. Her mother continues urging her daughter to keep fighting, because she is afraid Jenna will lose her will to live. One day Jenna’s mother came home after shopping and found Jenna unresponsive. She immediately called 911. Paramedics gave Jenna emergency oxygen and rushed her to a large medical center, where she was hooked up to a ventilator to assist her breathing. For several weeks, Jenna was semi- conscious. She moaned and grimaced, and her hands had to be restrained so that she would not pull out her breathing tube. She gradually lapsed into a coma, and her physician, also a Christian, asked Jenna’s mother for permission to stop the ventilator. Jenna’s mother refused, telling the doctor that she believed that God was ready to do a miracle for Jenna and that she could not give up hope. Jenna was receiving Medicaid benefits. Her care to that point had cost more than $200,000. Later that week, Jenna developed lung complications from the ventilator. The Coping with Jenna’s Story J