LIFE AND DEATH

I was going to post something about a book I'm reading now by Alice Hoffman but instead I need to get something off my chest. My nephew is coming off life support today. It's hard for me to write this and even harder to put something so personal out here in the world but I am. If you love your relatives -- husbands, wives, sisters, brothers -- do yourself and them a favor by knowing a thing or two about how the medical system works.

I've been a nurse for ten years and all ten years I've worked at some capacity as a critical care nurse. That means, when your uncle is having a massive heart attack, I'm the one that bends low into his ear and says, "Don't worry, you're going to make it." When that uncle feels a pain in his chest and an elephant trampling up the side of his arm and into his jaw, I'm the one that says, "Lay down, take some deep breaths, put this oxygen into your nose... I'm going to call your doctor." I'm the one who helps reposition that ventilator tubing when Uncle winds up on a respirator and I'm the one who holds your Aunt's hand when she says she has been married to him for thirty nine years and doesn't know how she's going to live without him. So suffice it to say, I'm not a shit cleaner. I'm a nurse. And I'm the one with your relative in the darkest hour of the night when they are afraid, lonely and worried that they may not see morning. I had to take a break from it when I had Kid #1 because I was truly burnt out. I've kept my skills intact over these years though, continuing to do it part time, moonlighting over the last six years. I've never completely left. But what I know and have known all these years is that health care, in this country at least, is a business. Get that straight in your head. It's a business. There are laws that surround it. There is money -- lots of money -- made in it. Don't be fooled. There are many doctors who are truly God ordained. Called to medicine, I believe. But there are just as many that are shoddy. That do and fail to do many, many things.

My nephew suffered a fatal blow to the head after falling down a flight of stairs at the sitter's house. He's been in the hospital for one week. My sister and her ex husband are taking the information given to them by the doctor's and taking him off the respirator. After one week. I'm devastated today. I don't know what was done and what wasn't done to determine whether or not this kid has brain waves, electrical activity. I want to talk to the doctors. I want them to fight for his life. If he has brain waves and a strong heart, I say wait it out. Give it some time. Pray. My sister doesn't want to ask any questions. Doctors said he'll be a vegetable all of his life. They're pulling the respirator today. After one week.

I have seen miracles. I have seen teenagers O.D. on countless drugs, wind up on respirators for weeks and live to tell about it. I've seen it. Not something I've read. It's something I've seen. I'm an optimist and it pains me to see this degree of pessimism. What can I do?

I do know one thing: I've talked to Spouse about how I feel and what I want when the bell tolls. I want him to fight for my life until God gives me my last breath. Period. I want no man taking my life. No man gave it to me and therefore I want no man taking it away. Spouse agrees. This is why I love him.

Talk to your loved ones and put it in writing.

Be well. Be love(d).