Quality of Life

 

A friend writes that her father, who is in his nineties, has been moved to a nursing home.  She then begins to tell me of the things he is now forced to deal with.

They wake him up in the middle of the night for things.  They weigh him every day.  The nurse must approve all food brought in by family.

We have become a nation of people who like to measure things.  It is easier to teach people how to measure pounds and blood pressure and food and count pills and hours and anything else that will fit neatly on a chart in five numbers, or less than anything else.

It is proof that we did our best, that we care, that everything possible was done.

Except that it isn’t!

I won’t even go into the realms of possibilities for these things to be done wrong, because they aren’t what is really important at all.

Long ago they discovered that orphan infants who were fed, changed, and kept clean still died when no one held them and really cared for them. 

The elderly are much more complex creatures than infants.  They each have needs that define quality of life much more directly than anyone can measure in pounds, hours, or beats of a heart.

I don’t understand why we cannot allow people to die peacefully, comfortably and without all this cold sterile intervention that takes away their humanity.  If we are very rich that is possible, but most of us will end up at the mercy of less perfect situations.

Perhaps what we need is something like the living will where a person can write down what they personally want during their last years, or months on earth.

I want comfort, the comfort of family and friends and food that I am accustomed to.  I would like to be read to and I am willing to provide a list of books I might like so no one has to second-guess what gramma likes!  If some them are a bit surprising, well so be it. 

Part of the joy of living is having a sense of humor and I wouldn’t mind allowing the next generations to know the truth.