Hannah's Choice: Saying No to a New Heart

[thundley4]

Such a heart breaking story.

The story of a 13 year old British girl who is refusing a heart transplant because she'd already been through enough pain reminds me that when you're looking for the right answer, humility may be as essential as wisdom.
Hannah Jones's leukemia was diagnosed when she was four; she later developed heart disease, and has endured chemotherapy and nearly a dozen operations. This past summer, when doctors told her that without a heart transplant she'd be dead in six months, she refused to go through with it. "I've been in hospital too much - I've had too much trauma," she told the Guardian. She was not asserting a right to die; she was suggesting that she had a right to live on her own terms, and to decide whether the benefit was worth the cost.
No one was promising a cure: without a transplant her heart was sure to give out, but the operation could kill her, as could the complications that might follow. Anti-rejection drugs could reignite the leukemia; another transplant might be necessary in just a few years.[quote/] Link

[mamacags]

As much as it hurts my heart when any child dies she is right about this.  The new heart could possibly give her 6 months, but not without a lot of hospitals, doctors, tests, and pain.  Why not just let her go home with her family who support her decision and leave it alone.  I think it is shocking that the hospital almost removed her from her family and forced her to get the transplant.