In a recent ER episode, a teenage kid with a degenerative neuromuscular condition is brought in to the hospital with a severe case of pneumonia. The doctors prepare to put him on a ventilator, but the kid refuses, stating that he doesn’t want to live the rest of his life dependent on a machine. The kid persuades one of the docs to support his decision and the kid dies.
When it came time for me to be put on a vent, I was in similar dire straits: deathly ill with pneumonia and semiconscious because of the elevated CO2 in my bloodstream. I remember a team of doctors filing into my hospital room and matter-of-factly informing me and my mom that I needed to be intubated. I remember freaking out and starting to cry, but I must’ve blacked out because the next thing I knew, I was in the ICU with a tube down my throat.
In the couple years leading up to that day, my hometown pediatrician tried repeatedly to have a conversation with me about what life with a ventilator might be like, but I kept blowing him off because I didn’t want to think about it. Looking back, the transition might have been a little easier if I’d known what to expect. And I probably would have still chosen the ventilator under less urgent circumstances. Even at thirteen, I was fairly certain I didn’t believe in God and I wasn’t ready for nothingness.
Some people consider an eternal life better than nothingness. Well, I can’t live with the idea of an unending life in front of god.
Nothingness is the same situation as we all were in before we were born: a fairly neutral, easy state. I didn’t suffer from it a all!
When we die, we disappear into to the same easy “nothingness”.
Only the worries about our loved ones after we’re gone make some difference.
And perhaps the words and ideas we leave behind…which a couple of people might read, and from which they may gather some joy or comfort .
Mieke.
I stopped watching both ER and Chicago Hope after they both had episodes featuring characters who chose death over living with an ostomy. On ER they let the guy die. On Chicago Hope they gave the character a j-pouch (an internal reconnection) but all the Dr.s agreed that life with an ostomy isn’t a life worth living. Luckily I came to my senses and decided life was worth living. I know my husband and daughter – who both came after my surgery – are happy I’m around.