I was in a quandary, facing the DNR decision again. In the end, it was easy and so liberating I could sing like Sarah Gabriel. (You know, you could sing like Sarah – all you have to do is release all doubt, fill your lungs with Faith and Joy, and let ‘er rip.)
Sometime yesterday, facing a heart catheter, I began to regret the decision to permit rescue if my heart stopped again. For all the things I have to live for (and they are many, including sending Monte the $50 I owe him), dyin is not the worst that could happen. All I needed to do is write a Last Words document. Once done (and it’s groovy), I’m more or less ready. I still need to address the to-do list, and manage the medical conditions, but bring it on…
It’s not such a big decision. I am going to die, hopefully not today, but eventually. Between now and then, I will have good days and bad days, I will feel good and I will feel bad. But I will feel, baby, I will feel it all the way.
DNR is easy to decide when you’re popping a 150 bpm heart rate, about to throw up, coughing incessantly and pissed off. Let it go, man, enough of this. Of course, if you’re deep in a conversation with a grand child or other good friend, if you are rocking out on a solo, you wanna be saved, please gimme more of this life. If morning meds will let me live more of this, pay the copay and pop the pills. If by-pass gets me out of a traffic jam or two, go on round.
On the other hand, when the moment come, there it is.
That’s not my last words – we all have to wait for those until it’s time. But if heart lungs brain have stopped, that’s it. No matter when, what or where, There. It. Is.
gary whitford is thinking and feeling 