(no subject)
Mar. 27th, 2005 07:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alonewiththemoon(actually written saturday, but the internet was broken at the time)
color me trendy, but I am loving M.I.A.'s new album Arular. man, am I loving it. I totally want to use Pull up the People for one of my kabarett shows.
Today has been a very physical day. Woke up, did the 30 minute Rachel Brice workout, realized I was going to be late for rehearsal, ran around like a madwoman until I got to the BCAE, danced like an Egyptian gypsy for a while, lugged groceries home on a couple of buses, danced another half hour to various Oojami songs when I got home, and then did Hadia's 45 minute cool-down/strengthening routine. Various endorphins, some dark chocolate and a glass of wine have me in a blissful state.
For the last two weeks or so, my boss' wife has been in a coma following a stroke. She never really regained any consciousness and could not breathe on her own, so today her support was removed and she passed away quickly. It's been very hard working with someone whose most loved one is in that position. ( I haven't written about it at all here to protect their privacy, but it's in the papers now.) I figured the only thing I could do really was to continue to do my job as well as I could, but I'm only now realizing how hard that was, in some ways. For the past two days, I've been working intensively on an obituary for a woman who wasn't actually dead yet, who really was lying in a hospital bed a mile or so away, but though she wasn't physically dead, by all accounts there wasn't likely to be much left to her. And of course the news has been full of all the Schiavo stuff, and as I watch a person making that kind of decision for his loved one, I am so deeply saddened that somehow Congress and the President saw fit to intervene in the most personal situation of all. I feel for her parents, but their level of denial is extraordinary, and it's horrible that their personal, private pain is being turned into a political opportunity.
The result of all this is that I will get together with my parents as soon as I can to sign their healthcare proxy forms, and M and I will write our own. You can download the forms for free here. It seems morbid to think about this so young, but the Schiavo case shows that these things can happen at any age, and I want my wishes on record. Although that then makes me really deeply examine what my wishes are. What could I bear to live with? At what point is life really no longer living? I'm sure the biological instinct to continue to live never really lets go, but is an intellectual decision made with no immediate danger what I would want when the circumstances came? Is life worth living if all you have is what's inside your head? Rationally, intellectually, now I do not think so. But how would I feel if it were really the option facing me? I don't have any belief in the afterlife, just a general warm fuzzy feeling about returning the energy and matter I am made of to the general pool. So for me, a DNR is awfully final.
I think of the three ferrets I have had to make a euthanasia decision for, and wonder whether i made the right decision at the right time for each of them--some perhaps I should have moved earlier, some perhaps later. Cully and Pan were ready to go, and probably would have died shortly on their own without assistance. I wanted to spare them the additional pain. Amelia I know was in a tremendous amount of pain, but she fought leaving at the very end, and it will forever kill me to remember that. How would it be if it were Mathew i was making that decision for?
So yes. A very physical day today, to escape these thoughts and feel my own vitality. Flawed though my muscles and tendons might be, they still enable me to live a complete life, all that I have while I have it. [and a Sunday update--partied amonst the fellow living Saturday night until the wee hours]
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rojagato, I saw the woman in the white coat with her ipod again today. She wasn't singing, but I involuntarily smiled at her when I saw her, and she smiled back.
color me trendy, but I am loving M.I.A.'s new album Arular. man, am I loving it. I totally want to use Pull up the People for one of my kabarett shows.
Today has been a very physical day. Woke up, did the 30 minute Rachel Brice workout, realized I was going to be late for rehearsal, ran around like a madwoman until I got to the BCAE, danced like an Egyptian gypsy for a while, lugged groceries home on a couple of buses, danced another half hour to various Oojami songs when I got home, and then did Hadia's 45 minute cool-down/strengthening routine. Various endorphins, some dark chocolate and a glass of wine have me in a blissful state.
For the last two weeks or so, my boss' wife has been in a coma following a stroke. She never really regained any consciousness and could not breathe on her own, so today her support was removed and she passed away quickly. It's been very hard working with someone whose most loved one is in that position. ( I haven't written about it at all here to protect their privacy, but it's in the papers now.) I figured the only thing I could do really was to continue to do my job as well as I could, but I'm only now realizing how hard that was, in some ways. For the past two days, I've been working intensively on an obituary for a woman who wasn't actually dead yet, who really was lying in a hospital bed a mile or so away, but though she wasn't physically dead, by all accounts there wasn't likely to be much left to her. And of course the news has been full of all the Schiavo stuff, and as I watch a person making that kind of decision for his loved one, I am so deeply saddened that somehow Congress and the President saw fit to intervene in the most personal situation of all. I feel for her parents, but their level of denial is extraordinary, and it's horrible that their personal, private pain is being turned into a political opportunity.
The result of all this is that I will get together with my parents as soon as I can to sign their healthcare proxy forms, and M and I will write our own. You can download the forms for free here. It seems morbid to think about this so young, but the Schiavo case shows that these things can happen at any age, and I want my wishes on record. Although that then makes me really deeply examine what my wishes are. What could I bear to live with? At what point is life really no longer living? I'm sure the biological instinct to continue to live never really lets go, but is an intellectual decision made with no immediate danger what I would want when the circumstances came? Is life worth living if all you have is what's inside your head? Rationally, intellectually, now I do not think so. But how would I feel if it were really the option facing me? I don't have any belief in the afterlife, just a general warm fuzzy feeling about returning the energy and matter I am made of to the general pool. So for me, a DNR is awfully final.
I think of the three ferrets I have had to make a euthanasia decision for, and wonder whether i made the right decision at the right time for each of them--some perhaps I should have moved earlier, some perhaps later. Cully and Pan were ready to go, and probably would have died shortly on their own without assistance. I wanted to spare them the additional pain. Amelia I know was in a tremendous amount of pain, but she fought leaving at the very end, and it will forever kill me to remember that. How would it be if it were Mathew i was making that decision for?
So yes. A very physical day today, to escape these thoughts and feel my own vitality. Flawed though my muscles and tendons might be, they still enable me to live a complete life, all that I have while I have it. [and a Sunday update--partied amonst the fellow living Saturday night until the wee hours]
rojagato, I saw the woman in the white coat with her ipod again today. She wasn't singing, but I involuntarily smiled at her when I saw her, and she smiled back.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-03-28 01:02 am (UTC)I'm kind of in the middle when it comes to DNR. I feel that it doesn't have to be all or nothing. There can be a compromise, where a certain amount of time is allowed for miracles to happen, but if that time goes beyond what seems reasonable to the parties involved, then a decision to stop the aid can happen. Meaning, perhaps an unconscious person may remain helped by the machinery for a certain number of months, but not decades.
With Laura passing not even two months ago, this issue is pretty recent for me too. She was so brave to accept the decision to go. She knew that time was not going to help her. After the breathing tube was pulled, she died in just a few hours (they said she'd have possibly a day). I'm not sure if I could have made the same decision so quickly. I think in the moment we will make the right choice.
I share your feeling about our energy being put back into the universe when our physical bodies die. Now is the time when we can create though, so it's important to make the most of each of our days.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-28 02:23 am (UTC)That makes me smile a lot.
I've finally downloaded the Living Will thing, but I'm kind of daunted that the only person that will ever execute it is my brother, and we're not on the same wavelength at all with this sort of thing; but also that I just don't know enough about what lies between life support and rehabilitation and life support and a persistently hellish and denigrated state of being.
Your boss has my sympathy and affection. I am so sorry for his loss of his love.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-28 07:31 pm (UTC)I just read her obit on boston.com. She sounds like she was a remarkable lady - so remarkable, in fact, that I find myself re-assessing my opinion of your boss. I admire men who pick really smart women. My condolences go out to him.
--Andrea