The old dude who lives across the road from the Hill Orchard shuffled over to talk with me as I was mowing.
His personal doomsday-clock shows a few months, maybe, until it hits midnight. He figures it will be sometime after the daytime lows drop below freezing.
He is disenchanted with the medical establishment. Not because he is dying. He knows that we all die. He is disenchanted because of three of bait-and-switches where he believed that he had been promised a transplant after the algorithm already disqualified him. Two different hospitals jerked him along for years. If they had been straight-up with him, he would not have been driving two hours and staying overnight in hotels to make early morning appointments. He would have patronized the closest hospital and received the same "monitoring" care.
The latest help they offered him (a hospital in Chicago) was a Ventricular Assist Device. They made it sound like a pacemaker in terms of mobility. He did his own research and decided that there were too many restrictions for him to be interested. For instance, it is his belief that he would be placed in an assisted living environment to minimize germs and to make it easier for the doctors in Chicago to monitor him.
That means he would die in Chicago and his financial assets would be depleted. His wife would become an impoverished widow and that is not acceptable to him.
He talked my ear off. Maybe it was his way of saying "Good-bye". He still has a firm handshake.
There is a meme about a battered lion that says "The problem with being strong is nobody asks if you're Ok".
ReplyDeleteYou're a great neighbor that he trusted to unburden his concerns on.
That gentleman has honor being concerned about his wife being a medically destitute widow.
Poinient moments in our lives where the goodbye is unspoken but undeniable. That may well have been the best he could do as a lion to ask you and your wife to look in on his wife. Roger
ReplyDeleteLiving with a transplant is no picnic because you are on drugs to suppress your immune system so that your body won't reject the foreign matter. Hence you are vulnerable to every infection around.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds as if much the same is true of living with a Ventricular Assist Device.
He's been ill-treated, poor sod. Best wishes to him for the time he has left.
My Dad passed a few years ago, it was a typical story. He fell and broke his hip, which kicked off the 'circling of the drain', as the hospice staff informed me (the pattern completes 6-18 mos. after injury, Dad went 9 mos.)
ReplyDeleteAfter surgery he did well for several months, and I would say he recovered physically from the surgery, was fully mobile w/o a cane/walker, but his health declined until he needed to be hospitalized. 3 days to stabilize, then to a Nursing home for 10-days (of antibiotic treatments). Home, all good for a (slightly shorter) spell... then a fever brought him to the Hospital for 3 days, and they discharged him to the home for 10... The cycle's gyres becomes every tightening.
Lost in all this, was they were treating him for MRSA. Never discussed, until the 3rd trip to the hospital/nursing home, and that was when he signed the DNR's and we called Hospice.
I can't prove it, but I'm convinced as are many in my position, that he caught MRSA either during surgery, or in the recovery period(s) at the Nursing Home (re-enforces the cycle...)
I can't say I blame the old fart across from the orchard. I'd rather go on my own terms. If nothing else, I'd be so angry at the industry for hoovering up my life's savings, after being the cause of my demise!
Truly, if they can't scrub MRSA bacteria off the facilities, which it's my understanding they cannot, I'll take my chances. Last thing I want to do is be milked by THAT industry for my finale.
"coming to terms". As we all must.
ReplyDeleteERJ, to echo Michael, you are obviously seen as someone that can be trusted.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that hospitals effectively lied - two of them - sits ill with me. Leading someone along with false hope is far worse than telling someone the truth - to the Old Lion's point, we all will know death, just not necessarily the day.
Medical penury is a real fear. My parents had planned well against the eventuality; the long term care plan they had is no longer available from the time when they bought it. Most now only cover a set period of time and only after a waiting period where you cover your own expenses.
I have a friend who has so much heart damage the doctors can't figure out how he is still alive.
DeleteThey have him on lots of pills and want him to get $100k of tests (not covered by insurance).
He is dropping the pills that mess him up the most and doing what he can to enjoy the remaining life God gives him.
Jonathan
Some adults may choose the place and time of their own demise.
ReplyDeleteA friend's Son in Law...his dad committed suicide.
Gunshot to the head ...with the family in the house with him.
How awful was that!
The mess to clean up.
The exposure of the family to a possible criminal investigation.
The trauma of finding the mutilated body.
My immediate thought was, "How terribly inconsiderate AND SELFISH of that asshole to make that decision!"
Which kicked me into thinking, "What's the best way to terminate the pain and depletion of family resources?"
The gun works, but the location is important.
I think the sidewalk outside the police department is the best place.
If you gotta go, do it right..
A friend did that. In his GF's bedroom in her parent's home. Suicide is the ultimate selfish act. To do it as you describe, as my friend did, is inexcusable. It was years before I was able to forgive him.
DeleteThe family asked me to make repairs. I said I could not do that. I hated that sob for putting us in that position.
I've lived these lives. Son in law committed suicide at 28 in marital bed. Cost to clean, 29 years ago was $3k. Hubby and I cleaned that up. Then hubby, needed two transplants. Heart and kidney. Months of ICU, too many hospital visits, pills on pills morning, noon and night. Then dialysis, last hospital stay Doc says he can't go home he's going to nursing home. I said no, he said no, and on next dialysis day he said no, no more. I called hospice that day. By then we had gone through saving, retirement and any spare dollars squirreled away. Day he died we had less than $400 dollars. It's brutal, costly and painful watching someone go through that hell.
ReplyDeleteI’ve thought several times, I’d rather die at home than be subject to ‘medical care’ in the nursing home, years of pills, treatments that don’t help, prolonged hospital stays.
ReplyDeleteSouthern NH
The wife and I have helped others on their lead up to crossing over. They all used hospice, a blessing if you get good help. Conversations were always honest.
ReplyDeleteWe've witnessed or experienced the bull shit the medical profession will try to pull on you. Research shows that most of the medical schools are owned and operated by Commie, NWO, WEF, WHO, glowbull warming adherents. So their graduates have no problem offing useless eaters. Everybody's eyes should have been opened to that, thanks to the covidioucy maim/kill program.
We've both decided to not die in a hospital, unless it's the unavoidable result of an accident, emergency.
Nobody is coming to save us, except, possibly, a close friend or relative.
Stay aware, at least condition yellow. Stay away from cities and 2ggers.
The dad of a friend simply told family members that it was a good day for a ride. I'll see you soon, he said. He rode his favorite horse to a favorite tree. He climbed down to lean against the tree. That's where they found him.
ReplyDelete