HW 32 - Thoughts following illness & dying unit

The most nightmarish practice concerning illness and dying is the fact that when it comes down to it, people with families who need help are essentially left to die or suffer because they don’t make a high enough income.

I believe that preventive health care is the most beneficial to America’s health system. Due to the fact that the atrocity of putting a price tag on a person’s well being won’t go away anytime soon the next best thing Americans could do it take measures such as having a healthy diet, exercise and sleep routine to keep preventable illnesses at bay.

I honestly don’t think this unit has changed me that much; I am healthy according to my doctor. Any family members who aren’t healthy haven’t listened to me in the past. I may try to approach them again and try and inform them about their health aliment but otherwise I think I’ll keep my mouth shut. As for looking out for the rest of the world, it’s not that I don’t think it is my responsibility but I don’t think I would be respected well enough to have anyone take my advice. I do, although plan to go to the gym this spring.

Dominant social practices around illness and dying connect to dominant social practices around food in our culture especially because food maintains to have magnitude of importance in our daily lives. I guess one could say that about any culture, so rather, the focal point should be put on what kinds of food Americans eat and the effect it is having on our bodies. 

HW 30 - Illness & Dying - Culminating Experiential Project

What was Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s role in Physician-assisted suicide and how did the public view him and his practices in the 1990s?

Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) is the voluntary termination of one's own life by administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician. In the debate of whether or not physician-assisted suicide should be legal the main arguments are: yes, it should be legal because those who are suffering deserve the right to die with dignity and: no, it should not be legal because in all circumstances doctors should do everything possible to save the life of their patients.

The most well known doctor to be associated with physician-assisted suicide is Dr. Jack Kevorkian, also known as Dr. Death. In 1989 Dr. Kevorkian spent $30 dollars on spare parts to build Thanatron (meaning suicide machine). Thanaron is built so that the physician prepares the machine, but it is the patient who presses a button to release a deadly drug. Two years later Dr. Kevorkian’s first patient was a 54 year old woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease. By 1993 Jack had assisted with the deaths of over more than 120 people all of whom were either chronically or fatally ill. His initial "assisted suicides" led to a 1993 Michigan law that specifically prohibited him from continuing, a law he openly defied in an effort to force the issue into the courts. Dr. Kevorkian believed that if am ill person is permitted to die (accepting of their own death) then they should be injected, quickly and painlessly. In 1995 Dr. Kevorkian opened up a “suicide clinic” in Michigan one patient was treated there and then Jack was kicked out by the owner of the building. Kevorkian was acquitted numerous times for charges of murder, but in 1999 he was convicted of second degree murder for the death of Tom Youk and delivery of a controlled substance he was sentenced to 10-25 years in prison. In 2007 Kevorkian was put on parole with restrictions designed to prevent him from promoting or participating in assisted suicide, Kevorkian was 79.

One of the opposing opinions was that Dr. Kevorkian was playing the role of god and he was deciding who was to die and who was to survive. The national spinal cord injury association opposed physician assisted suicide because they believed that there were better ways around the pain and suffering. Another opposing view point was that to refuse medical treatment was the individual’s choice to die, but to be involved in assisted suicide was to give another person the power to take your life, thus giving them the power to kill. One thing that people who opposed physician assisted suicide didn’t realize was that what Dr. Kevorkian’s patients came to him and the patients families begged for his help. Kevorkian wasn’t supporting any patients who didn’t want to die. In all but one case his patients released the fatal chemicals into their bodies. One other opposing prospective was that Dr. Kevorkian was using the procedures in order to get rid of the disabled or the unhealthy.

After talking with my grandmother her point of view was that hospitals won’t make money unless “death is kept alive.”  She believes that if the Death with Dignity Act is passed then more people who are painfully ill will choose to have a physician assisted suicide rather than to die in a hospital with snakes of painkillers entering their body. She also believed that as a human being she should have the right to do what she wants to with her body and her mind. Many others who supported Dr. Kevorkian also believed the same view that my grandmother does. If people take pain killers to numb the body then what is so bad about permanently ending the pain and suffering if the people involved are accepting of the decision to end their life or their loved ones life.

Today only one state has passed the Death with Dignity Act, and that is Oregon. The law took effect in 1997, and in 2007 292 people have died under its provisions. In Oregon only those who are terminally ill and expected to die in the next 6 months, and who are mentally competent adults are allowed to take the life ending medication prescribed by their doctor. Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands also authorize the assistance of physicians in their patient’s suicides. 

HW 28 - Comments 2

comments I wrote.
To Natalie: WOW! There are many things I liked about the telling of your experience. But the beauty stands out the most to me. My favorite quote was "As much as I hate to admit it, I found myself being happy that I was separated from the ill and dying..." It made me imagine how our daily lives would change if all the patients in nursing homes lived with the larger majority of society. I have a feeling there would be less compassion for the elderly because they would constantly be "in the way". your writing made me think about how the system of sending the elderly to a home may not be morally correct but on of the alternatives wouldn't be widely accepted either.


To Sharif-Hey Sharif- This was interesting to read. I enjoyed how you made connections to Tuesdays With Morrie. And how you also stated things you noticed to be different about Nadia's behaviors, which automatically allowed you to believe that Nadia is dying. Your line "She seemed contempt, not that she had accepted the fact but more like it wasn't serious enough to worry about." made me think about how important it is to accept death even if you don't think you are near dying. i wonder what would happen if children were raised(reaffirmed everyday) with the idea that they could die due to billions of different sinarios, in one day alone. I would have enjoyed your post a little more if you had incorporated all of that information but explained the setting and environment in such away that i felt like i was with you experiencing the conversation with Nadia too.
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comments peers wrote.
My dad said - Amanda clearly identifies Roberta's helplessness as she slowly looses her ability to function in the world as an octegenerian. Without her friends to help her she would have little or no quality of life; fresh food and a trip to the library may only come once or twice a month. With limited family resources of our own we still find a way to improve Roberta's life by weekly visits for shopping, house cleaning, and companionship. As we get older we may become less aware of other peoples needs and Roberta is completely unaware of the sacrifices that Amanda and Theo have made so their father can help her keep her life together. It is sad to see someone at the end of their life so dependent on others to survive. Roberta has told me many times how much she really appreciates our visits. Yet, this apology doesn't compensate Theo and Amanda for the time lost from being with their dad. In life there are many tradeoffs and I am hoping both Amanda and Theo will be able to appreciate that the gift we give to Roberta of our caring and time is worth the loss of family time we might have spent doing other things.


Felipe said- Amanda, I felt as if your most interesting line (to me) was, “...I was feeling much resentment towards Roberta. She was once a functioning person who could take care of herself in society, but now she relies on other people to take care of her, when she would be able to if she weren’t so disoriented or unfocused.” Because this focuses on illness and the feelings you may experience during it. Much like other things in our life, when we have feel as if we are left out or of loneliness, we direct our anger towards the most accessible thing which in this case is Roberta. I feel as if she is the easiest target because of her illness and weakness to put this anger on. My opinion itself also proves how other peoples sickness affect the way we look at them and think of them.


Abdullah said- Amanda, I think you exhibited a lot of good thoughts in this post. The fact that you and your family even went to visit a friend of your grandmother is shocking to me. I don't think I even know one of my grandparents' friends. I really liked your description of her house because I felt that it added a sense of hesitancy that you had to leave as soon as possible. Like Andy said, what your grandmother told you about being jealous of you and your brother was quite unique. Since my grandmother if she ever felt that way, would never be that honest with me. I also liked how you ended your blog saying that you would probably not treat her differently even if you saw her again because it shows how we as a society often tend to keep our first impression as the last impression. I also felt that you were treating Roberta as an illness rather than a person. I don't mean this in a bad way. Since I think I know you pretty well personally, I'm just saying you're a open person that doesn't really keep their feelings towards someone bottled up, and I like that.


My brother said-my brother said- I don't feel exactly the same about the experience, but I like how my sister describes how Roberta had a difficulty with normal, everyday, easy tasks. In the line "...she was conscious of her footing as if crossing a large river." This helped me think about how much more difficult it was for Roberta then it was for us to get into the car.

HW 27 - Visiting an unwell person

Recently I visited a family friend of my grandmother, Roberta. I was not intentionally attempting to visit with them since I felt like it wasn’t my responsibility and I had no personal individual connection to the woman. It is nuanced whether or not the woman is ill or dying. She is aging but it’s subjective if aging is dying. My father and brother and I drove two and a half hours out to Shirley, Long Island to visit our beach house. At least that’s what my brother and I were doing. Once we arrived on the Island we picked up Roberta and drove to the pizzeria to ensure no one got overly antsy due to empty bellies and the lack of understanding for why the attention isn’t purely on the children (my brother and I). Roberta walked very slowly out of her small cottage which seemed quaint through the dirty glass window shield, and the lace of pine tree branches. She had a light weight sweater on, no scarf; she was conscious of her footing as if crossing a large river. She used a broken plastic broom as a cane. It seemed like it took her 5 minutes just to get into the car.

After eating pizza, slower than if it had been just my father brother and I, we drove to the library to get Roberta some books. She doesn’t own a car and her family lives out of state not that the location of their residence would change the number of visits they made. She spent so much time looking for her library card she emptied the entire purse out on her lap with the car door wide open allowing the cold air to attack the wonderful, artificially made heat. My brother and I had showed no intentions to offer to help her buy groceries or go to the library for her. In fact we stayed in the car complaining to each other about how much time the shopping was taking. My dad helped Roberta. He didn’t make us do anything we hadn’t signed up for by coming to long island with him. We arrived back at her house and my dad, brother and Roberta helped unpack the groceries. I waited in the car expecting their return shortly. It wasn’t shortly it felt like an extensive amount of time. Eventually I went inside to see when we would be returning to the city. The house was dark and the rug was layered in filth there was a “kitchen” to the left which consisted of a temporary looking sink one might find in a laundry room which was over flowing with dishes and a tiny four burner stove. The room and furniture looked as if she had been moving out and all of a sudden told all the movers to drop their boxes, couches, tables, desks, even the kitty litter box. Nothing was intentionally placed in its location. There was artwork strewn all over the corners of the room, which smelled like cat piss. I urged my father to say good bye and within a few minutes we returned back to the car.

On the drive home my dad and I talked, I was feeling much resentment towards Roberta. She was once a functioning person who could take care of herself in society, but now she relies on other people to take care of her, when she would be able to if she weren’t so disoriented or unfocused. My dad said that it was okay for me to be angry at her, that she was selfish about the decisions she made in her life but that we don’t have a time machine so all he can do is help Roberta at the moment. She was happy to see us. she and my father created the conversation and my brother and I added in to it. There was nothing life changing said no big actions exchanged. Just callous thoughts on my part I certainly didn’t attempt to make anything special out of the day. My grandma told me that she doesn’t have the same thought process, so when she’s taking hours at the grocery store she is only thinking about what is in sight, not how much time she is taking and how it affects others. My grandma also said that she sometimes would get angry that my brother and I because those are the reasons my dad can spend all his time with her and she’s jealous. It’s difficult for me to be compassionate when I am angry due to the lack of understanding or maturity level. If I were to go with my father again to meet with Roberta I would probably act similarly to how I did the first time.

HW 26 - Looking back & forward in unit

Insights

1) When someone dies their loved one doesn’t cry for the one that’s passed away but they are really crying for themselves. – grandma and previous thought

2)It’s possible that the person, who dies, dies at a time in place that will leave the loved ones with the greatest impact (lesson) or least pain. –discussion with grandma

3)Everyone’s life has a price. Our culture puts price tags on quality of life one may live based on if they can afford treatment. – realization gained from watching Sicko

4)It’s inconceivable to understand the effects of one’s death and others illnesses unless you have been exposed to death and even then it is difficult to understand the suffering and complications felt/dealt with by loved ones

Best Sources

Talking with my grandma has been the best source for discovering new ideas and insights. When we talk we pull upon past memories and experiences we have of people around us dying and being ill. Noting we say is based on studies, statistics or hard facts. But at the same time the lack of cited evidence allows for deeper thought, since we are over whelmed by surprisingly large numbers and incriminating facts. It’s also the most enjoyable I like talking and bonding with her in that way it is extremely engaging, due to the give and take in the conversation, and as far as I know the conversations are honest.

Further Research Areas

1)At what point is a person dead? Last heart beat, when they aren’t in any of the livings memories, when they can’t respond to stimuli?

2)Why is it Americas culture for people to die in a hospital, a place of very little significance and familiarity? Apparently 80 percent of Americans die in hospitals.