Word Count:\u00a0 385<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t think I would change my mind and I didn\u2019t, even after the diagnosis that gave me three months at the most. Now that I\u2019m closer to the end of it all I want more. I ask the doctor about the new therapy that\u2019s been in the news. He tells me it hasn\u2019t been proven. But I\u2019d be willing to try, I say. He smiles that same odd smile he used when I\u2019d asked him about a transplant. That\u2019s his answer. There\u2019s really nothing he can do.<\/p>\n

And he can\u2019t. It\u2019s out of his hands. Out of mine.<\/p>\n

I made the living will years ago when younger and healthy but with a door that could always be opened, always be changed with my mind.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m forty-eight. As of six months ago I\u2019d had no signs of health issues. Non-smoker, non-drinker, get sex as often as I can and no proof that it\u2019s ever hurt me or led to this shortening of my life. Congenital heart failure, passed down from my father\u2019s side but I never knew. Dad was killed in a car accident when he was still in his early forties.<\/p>\n

Would I have signed papers had I known this? Probably. When you\u2019re in what you feel is your prime nothing like your own death makes any sense. So a document, albeit legal, has no reality to you either. It\u2019s just the right thing to do. So you don\u2019t live for years like a carrot which is something, oddly enough, that you can relate to even as death, an unknown, you cannot.<\/p>\n

No to the transplant, no to the promising new process, no to super fast food via a tube. No CPR, no to any last chances at all.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to breathe now and they will give me oxygen and morphine to help hide the pain. I ask the nurses, beg the doctors, even tell the cleaning lady I want to live.<\/p>\n

But the living will, that simple document that was supposed to help in case I couldn\u2019t tell them what I wanted, overrides any choice I make now.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry, says my doctor, but once it\u2019s been filed with the state it\u2019s in the database. There\u2019s nothing else we can do. While I was busy living, extraordinary means has been redefined by law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Word Count:\u00a0 385 I didn\u2019t think I would change my mind and I didn\u2019t, even after the diagnosis that gave me three months at the most. Now that I\u2019m closer to the end of it all I want more. I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,15],"tags":[25,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1530"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1532,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530\/revisions\/1532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}