My dad had kidney disease for over 20 years, starting around 1970. It's the kind of disease where your body just falls apart bit by bit. He had bowel surgery, infections, hemorrhages. Many many trips to the emergency room, many weeks in intensive care, many procedures, surgeries, dialysis, etc. My mom worked in the hospital where he was treated, and he had first-rate care, always. He was a very proud guy, an entrepreneur and immigrant, born in Venezuela; he'd been a successful businessman, but this illness took him down remorselessly, day by day.
Finally, in 1993, his liver began to fail. By this time his mind was very cloudy compared to what it had once been, but he understood that there was very little left to try. Just one procedure, one that he might not survive. Everyone was very kind to us through all of this. It was pretty clear to me and my mother and my father--who had been through such a lot of surgeries and complications and now he was just so weak and so tired--that this might be the end. So we talked about it a bit, together and separately but really, you can't say much. When the options have been reduced so far, and there's absolutely no chance, no "getting better" or coming back ... not even the tiniest ray of hope, because all the 'miraculous recoveries' have already come and gone. Nobody who hasn't been through this knows the first thing about it, is what I am trying to say.
Here's what it's really like, "pulling the plug." It's late at night, and he won't wake up, and everyone knows he won't wake up ever again, not ever, no matter what. This poor wrecked little body, all over tubes, sutures, bandages. Every major organ in this body is either damaged or completely ruined from the disease. The doctor, the one you trust the most, who's been through so much with you, comes and holds hands with you. It's beyond plain, finally, to everyone, there are no doubts; it's over. If there were the least doubt you know that this doctor would be doing all he could to persuade you to try just one more thing; but it's over, and your mom has the permission to sign this piece of paper so that your father can be released from his suffering. You tell her, it's okay; if you don't sign it they will keep him like this for days probably, and we know he won't wake up because his brain isn't really working anymore. So she signs, and this way he dies a few hours later.
That's what it's really like; for us, anyway, and I imagine for many people in the same spot, it came after years and years of battling a terrible illness with everything you've got. Everybody would prefer not to have to face these things but sometimes there is no choice. I guess in Teabagger Land they would keep these poor ravaged people in comas forever. Great! Clearly these people have never been in a hospital.
And everybody, really everybody, should designate someone who can do this for you, in case, though I fervently hope that it never happens to anyone, not even to the most horrible teabagger.