Refuse amputation and you will die

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anna

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I was leaving Mass this morning and two Sisters, i will not name the order asked if I wanted to go for coffee. The subject of amputation was brought up, one of the nuns said she already informed her superior and her family that if anything would call for her to have an amputation,she will refuse, even if it meant she would die. Is it a sin not having the amputation done, to the point you will loose your life?
 
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No, I don’t believe it is. You’re not required to keep yourself alive if gravely ill. On the otherhand, you can’t cause your own death. In this case, death would be due to a disease(?) taking its natural course.
 
My father’s coworker developed a skeletal muscle tumor in his thigh. (The course of this cancer is always the same, it starts in the leg and spreads to the lungs.) The coworker’s father died from the same cancer. Amputation would give him a 80% chance of survival. Whereas, keeping the leg would only give him less than 10% chance of survival.

He kept the leg and died 9 months later. Most would say that he was a fool; however, there’s no way to know for sure that the cancer hadn’t already metastasized.
 
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That’s how Bob Marley died. They could’ve amputated his toe but they didn’t and the cancer spread
 
Cancer is incredibly tricky and it can go undetected. My uncle had a harmless growth removed from his head and within months it came back as melanoma. He was gone in 7 months. Looking back, the only possible solution would have been to remove a large portion of his skull before the tumor metastasized.
 
anna said:
Is it a sin not having the amputation done, to the point you will loose your life?
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Assuming it’s a large amputation like a foot or a leg and not just a toe, it’s okay to refuse as far as I know. My mother refused an amputation and when she was getting in a state of not being able to make her own medical decisions (she had an illness that caused her to be temporarily “out of it” from time to time due to an infection), I refused it on her behalf. As far as I am concerned, it’s extraordinary means, especially when the person is already ill and doesn’t have a good chance of surviving such an extreme operation. I could tell the doctors were relieved that neither Mom or I wanted them to do it.

I’m also pretty sure that if there was anything sinful about the nun’s statement, her superior would have corrected her.
 
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Even if you don’t have cancer or an infection, amputation, at least of a large appendage, puts a strain on your circulatory system. If you already have some type of heart or vascular disease it might be too much.
 
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Correct. Joe’s mom had a particularly insidious cancer in her leg. Amputation would have onely bought her 6 months, so she refused.
 
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Amputation, to me, would fall wholly under extraordinary means.

To get to the point where your health is so grave you need to remove body parts, it’s serious business. Even if the prognosis is better it’s not a guarantee.

I think this day in age we forget that EVERY surgery no matter how minor has a chance of death. A serious surgery such as amputation carries much higher risks.
 
Maybe he was ready to die, though. It is not unusual for older people to feel they are ready to go. I don’t know how old your dad’s co-worker was, but I wouldn’t consider him a fool under those circumstances. Even young people sometimes are ready to go.
 
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I suppose it would depend on overall health and on the reason for the amputation. I feel like the amputation of a limb on a previously healthy young adult who was in an accident, would be different from the amputation of a limb with cancer in a frail person.
 
It came up in our conversation because a member of the parish had her leg amputated below the knee. She, by the way is 89 years old and her family agreed to it. I had gone to the hospital to see her and she was alert, and her son said she was doing well. I had asked the sisters to remember her in their prayers.🦋🦋
 
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