Saturday, July 25, 2009

A funeral

This morning we are going to the funeral of a 39 year old who had no significant health problems and lived a healthy life style. It will probably be pretty awful. He was so young. It was so unexpected.

I have been thinking about Shean's death and the recent death of two other friends. Jill had a life time of medical issues relating to severe asthma. She went for lots of different treatments and tried all sorts of things to help her out. But she still sang in a choir, worked, traveled, and loved life. Andy I admit I had lost touch with him for probably the last 15 years and all I know is he died after a brief illness. Three people struck down in the prime of their life but none of them endured months of suffering and pain.

I think this is where I am going to. Quality of life and palliative care are very important. If you are sick or stressed, do something about it. Doctors I think are understanding of the need to maintain quality of life. If yours doesn't, find a new doctor who does! But also do your part, speak up and tell them what's wrong, what's bothering you, what hurts. Go to follow up appointments and do what they tell you (provided its reasonable - I can tell you stories of unreasonable crazy things I have heard...).

If I had a choice of dying quickly with no advance warning or ten years in a nursing home, in diapers unable to feed myself, not knowing who was there. My choice would be a quick death without months or years of a horrible life. Okay, this maybe really morbid but we all should think about it. I have three friends who died unexpectedly. I personally don't know how well they had planned for life's unexpected events but their families now need to pick up the pieces and figure out what they wanted and what they have to do now. Maybe this is a prodding to get a living will, write a will, discuss options with spouse, etc.

After the funeral, we are going away for two days. We originally were going Friday but delayed our trip by one day so we could go to the funeral. I hope some downtime will relieve some of the stress. Work has been stressful as well.

But kitty has a babysitter - a professional pet service who comes and plays with him and gives him his injections. We will go stay at a B&B on the beach.

1 comment:

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