No Loitering

If I could choose my exit, I opt for a quick death--here one minute, gone the next, with little or relatively little pain.  But, barring suicide, one has little to say in the matter.  So, this next entry is to address what should happen if I should not get the quick out that I hope for.

Simply put, I don't want extraordinary efforts taken to maintain a life not worth living, for which there is no hope of recovery.  Lucy's story, in At the End of Life, resonates with me.  Lucy was 8 years old when she was diagnosed with leukemia.  Her initial treatment led to remission, but when the cancer returned, a bone marrow transplant was her only option.  Against the odds, Lucy developed a particularly severe form of host versus graft disease, which her parents were told would make her wish she had died.  The recount of what happened was gut-wrenching.  Lucy did want to die, but the doctors and nurses were mightily to keep her alive.  Lucy, although a child, recognized that the quality of her life could never be sufficient to make life worth living.

Or consider Mr. Stone, an elderly man who knew the end was near when he expressed his wish not to be intubated and put on a ventilator.  That didn't stop the doctors from suggesting that he was incapable of making such a decision and intubating him against his wishes. 

I want to live!  Let me rephrase, I want to live with dignity!  I want to love my family and argue about politics and cheer for the Cowboys. 

And I want to die with dignity.  I don't want to be hooked up to machines that breathe for me or perform other bodily functions if there is no hope of living, truly living without the new technology  If I exist only in body, but my spirit is trying to go, let me go!  Let me go to my Savior!

 I want to be pain-free and generally comfortable, and I want to be at home.  Surround me with love, some music from the 60s and 70s, and let me go. 

For the record, I do have an advance directive, but lest there be any doubt, let this serve as additional evidence of my wishes.