Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
A memory without pain
Let every man in mankind’s frailty
Consider his last day; and let none
Presume on his good fortune until he find
Life, at his death, a memory without pain.-Sophocles, Oedipus Rex
I wonder when we started dying in hospitals. Not by accident (we’ve been doing that, I’m sure, for as long as we’ve had hospitals), but by intention.
All four of my grandparents died in hospitals. My mother’s brother died alone, his body undiscovered for a few days; that’s even worse. But I’m not sure it matters where we die. Dead is dead, right? And yet, like many people, I play with the fantasy of dying in my own home with at least one loved one by my side.
Anyone in medicine can tell you stories of patients’ last days. Nearly all of the terminally ill grab for that desperate last chance — salvage chemotherapy, anyone? — rather than admit to the inevitable. Many times during training, my senior residents and my attending physicians would, when presented with one horrid diagnosis or another, say, “Someone should give him a one-way ticket to Hawaii and tell him to stock up on good booze and strong narcotics.”
Today, I finally met someone who decided to go to Hawaii.
He’s coming back, he says, and when he does, he’ll take that last stab at radiation therapy. But dammit, he’s going to enjoy Hawaii while he can. Radiation can wait; he’s gonna live.
I’m sad about his diagnosis, but I’m happy for him. Somehow, I don’t see this fellow dying in a hospital.
D.
A doc friend of mine once gave me a book on the rise of hospitals (as opposed to home care) and the rate of hospital deaths — one of her suggested readings from med school I think. Scared me.
My family is the polar opposite of yours. Pretty much all of the elders (within my memory) have died at home. Their deaths weren’t particularly unexpected, as they were in their declining years and being treated for various chronic ailments, but neither were they acutely ill. The general feeling seems to be that they’d rather die (literally) than be hospitalized for an extended period of time or be in hospice or nursing home care.
Me, I’d go to Hawaii, too.
I keep wondering at the fact that in all these years, he’s the first guy I’ve met who is doing the “right” thing. This other gal came close, but she lacked the financial resources to do anything special. Nevertheless, she said no to the horribly maiming procedure which might have extended her life a couple of months at most, and she died quickly and painlessly.
I need to stop dwelling on this! Yesterday, after writing this, I spent some time on YouTube looking at various clips from The Aristocrats. That helped 😉
My stepmother suffered through a bad bout with cancer at the turn of this century, and all she could think about while it was going on was being able to get through it and go to Hawaii. She beat it, and she and my father took her son and his girlfriend and his daughter from a previous marriage, along with my wife and me, to Maui for a week. It was one of the best vacations I’ve ever had; a victory over death, so to speak.
Less than two years later, the cancer came back, and this time she lost the battle. But we will always have that memory of Hawaii in 2001 with her.
This is a tough one. I wonder how many people facing a particularly grim diagnosis make that last ditch effort for the “right” reasons. My sister and I both feel that our father would have struck out for the wilds of Alaska (that was his Hawaii) if it were not for his feelings of obligation to his family to stay and fight. Out step-mother is a nurse and she was a great cheerleader but we are not sure she did what was best for him with her “never give up” attitude. He was terminal. No way around it and he went through months of agonizing treatment that not only didn’t extend his life but possibly shortened the time he had left. And then there is the stigma of “giving up.” Where do you draw the line between giving up and accepting reality with grace and dignity? Hell if I know. At least he died at home. That was his last wish and we were able to do that for him.
Generik: great story. I imagine your step-mom’s passing was made that much easier for that memory (for her as well as her family).
KariBelle, that’s what happened with my father-in-law. I don’t think the medical field did him any favors.
With the gracefullness she embodied all her 87 years, and surrounded by her children and their spouses, my mother died peacefully at home on October 1st. She had been much too frail to go to Hawaii, or even to the kitchen, for many years, but we honored her wishes, and arranged for her to be cared for in her own home. That was her Hawaii.
I play with the fantasy of, you know, not dying. Too dreary. Immortality is a much more appealing prospect.
Dan, I have that fantasy, too. But it also involves having a younger body and limitless health 🙂 Ever read Gulliver’s Travels? I loved Swift’s take on immortality.
The struldbrugs? Yeah, I would definitely prefer immortality with regeneration. Either the Doctor Who type, or the Heroes type. Otherwise, aging notwithstanding, over hundreds and hundreds of years, you’re sure to lose limbs and organs due to accidents or assault. It’d be preferable that that stuff would grow back. Of course, the ideal situation would be to be an energy being that could take human form, and revert back to energy when somebody pointed a gun at you or something.
Is that what they were called? I haven’t read GT since high school.
Give me immortality with regeneration. That energy creature idea, too much like playing a video game in God Mode. Ten minutes of that, and you’re too bored to live. There has to be at least some risk to make life interesting.