Carpé Diem

A couple of months ago I spent a week in hospital with an infected gallbladder. I was very ill and in terrible pain. I couldn't move for the pain and food was out of question. I was scanned and probed and the Doctor decided that antibiotics were preferable to surgery. I think this was based on my condition (as a quadraplegic) and the potential impact of surgery. It was 3 days into my stay and on the 2nd set of antibiotics that I began to feel really low. I had a sense of my mortality and all my plans still unfulfilled, suddenly I was aware I didn't want to remain in the hospital, surrounded by strangers. I wanted to be with people I loved.

On this day,  I was asleep. It was 4am and I was struggling. I was too weak to wake myself and the world began to fade; I realised I needed to come back. I was awoken by Debbie after she woke up to find  me lying very still and I wasn't breathing. I was filled with a sense of gratitude, relief and a little afraid.

I decided I needed to get out of the hospital as soon as I could.

This weekend I had with my children and I loved every minute. I won't see them for 3 months and I will miss them.

Every moment of life is for being.... so be a part of every moment.

Assisted Suicide

So sitting in the half-light of a summer evening, "Embarrassing Bodies" in the background (Channel 4's Entertainment for the evening, intended to raise ooh's, ouch and other similar reactions). There is a paraplegic trying to walk, a guy with a condition called Zoon's Balanitis (yes a real health condition, believe it or not, an inflamed penis) and other similarly embarrassing conditions. Which, ironically, are so bad that they are prepared to display all, to millions on tv.

I am thinking about the debate raging at the moment. Assisted Suicide. Currently focused on terminal patients (6 months to live). Typically people with terminal cancer or similar. Fear of a painful lingering death and the loss of dignity gives rise to this call to be allowed to choose when they die. I am reminded that there are many people who are too disabled to commit suicide. Some want to broaden the debate to include them. They  would like that they can choose the time and place and not have it that any person who assists be prosecuted.

The debate is opposed by others concerned that by allowing this society puts undue pressure to end their lives. They argue that family members may presurise sufferers to end it and stop being a burden. Obviously weak minded or depreesed people are susceptible.

I just think that physically disabled people should be allowed the same choices as others. I went through a stage of being really stressed by the feeling that I would end up helpless and unable to do anything while others controlled my life. It is said that, knowing one can choose, when the time comes removes the pressure. In my life I have found that I can cope if I do a day at a time. If the day is bad I always say, "One more day....". This way I can keep going.

What do you think?