Do You Value Life

My father was a decorated veteran of WWII and Korea. He raised seven kids and loved them all to no end. Dad died from Alzheimer’s disease and the only one that cared for him for the last eight or nine years of his life was me. The only person that knew of his last wishes was me. All of the burden from seven children was on me to sign a DNR which is a Do Not Resuscitate should he go into a medical condition that could end in his death. I spent the last night with him holding his hand and he had no clue as to who I was. And yet I knew who he was. That was all that mattered.

There is a ton of controversy over the current health care legislation in Washington and there should be. I don’t want a blanket Gestapo health care plan but we all know that the system is broken. Nobody in America would drive by an accident with people, children, babies, bleeding and dying on the side of the road and yet that is what the current system does. Our health care system only cares for the people that can afford it and if you don’t have a job, you have an emergency room health care system. The costliest system there is. That means it is broken. Our health care system sucks! It’s one of the worst health care systems in all of the industrialized nations of the world.

I have Parkinson’s or some form of it according to doctors and the director of Neurology at UMASS Medical hospital in Worcester. I haven’t had insurance to treat it for a year and a half. I lost my job. I don’t bitch about it, I deal with it. I don’t have medication for it, I don’t bitch about it either. I do however have a living will.

I don’t want my children visiting a vegetable in a hospital or nursing home for a decade. I don’t want machines keeping me alive for one more second than God intended. That is my right and my decision to decide. I have made my peace with my God and I am not afraid. My path is not easy but my words for now are the truth. I am one of the people lost in the health care system that is broken beyond belief. I have my faith in God but I would like a few more years with my children. Could a health care system for all do that?

Nobody is proposing to kill the elderly. That would be idiotic just as it sounds. Matter of fact, the person putting in that addendum to the health care plan is a Republican doctor in the Congress. All he is asking for is a living will for all. I don't have a problem with that but I do have a problem with his political party selling it as a fear factor even though it came from their own political party as an addendum!

Thought for the process of the discussion for you to think about. Don’t you think you have a right in the discussion as to how you want to be treated in the end of your days? I know for a fact that I sure as hell do! Whatever organs I have that are of use, take em, use them, do whatever you want with them. My time in this vessel is or will be done. Anyone mocking this life changing legislation has never read the current wording by Senators Dodd and Kennedy. What has been added to it is not of their ownership.

Life is what it is, love it while you have it to enjoy! Go out of your way to make someone smile while you can.

Papamoka