A high percentage of patients die anyway, and even those who live longer often don't live well.
Catherine Burgoyne hated what was happening to her. At the age of 92, she had suddenly lost her cherished independence. A fall led to kidney failure, which led to dialysis, which led to the need to tie her wrists to the hospital bed rails.
In those days, she was often confused, and would try to rip out the tube in her chest, implanted to enable dialysis. But her words and grimaces left no doubt that she could not bear the restraints, or her complete dependence — a life so different from what she had known just weeks earlier.
