Death

Sometimes I don't know if what I write should just be "out there."  Sometimes I keep posts private.  This set of thoughts is kind of on, well, "the line."  We'll see how I feel once I write this, whether to post this set of thoughts.

One of Adam's cousins posted an interesting video link on facebook about a young couple in her area.  About a month after this couple was married, the husband was in a car accident and badly injured.  I don't know how exactly he would be medically classified, but all I could think about when seeing the video of his "stuck" looking stare and mouth permanently wide open was that Terri Schavo person who was in a persistant vegetative state years ago (there was a fight among her family whether to let her die or continue with her tube feedings, if I remember right), where she would just stare off into space, no talking, sometimes just had a permanent, odd smile on her face.

I've often wondered how I would feel if Adam were here, if he were in a medical state as this woman's husband.  Her husband can't talk.  He (appears) paralyzed and is in one of those "special" wheelchairs.  He can't feed himself, dress himself, take care of any of his bodily functions.  She has to to all of it.  To keep him "alive."  And she is in her early twenties.

How would I feel if I were her, if Adam had been put in that state after only one month of marriage?

I don't have that kind of faith.  That is what I've determined.  I think Heavenly Father knows that.

And maybe I can say what I'm about to say sort of easily because Adam and I had just had the "what if" discussion.  I told him to "pull the plug" on me, if he had to make that decision.  As healthcare workers, we had seen numerous times where things were certainly moral dilemmas, in terms of "quality of life" issues.  There is a huge gray area in medicine.  Certainly I can see why some doctors gain a God complex.  It's scary.  There is a lot of power involved.

Adam and I had seen plenty of times where family members would rather have their family members' hearts beating, rather than have any sort of normal interaction just to "keep them alive"--to keep that sort of hope.  It's an amazing stressor to watch how families react in these life or death situations, how they make (at times) irrational decisions.  Because there often isn't a seemingly "easy" or "correct" answer.  There are all sorts of ethics that are argued one way or another, things like, "Well, if God wanted them to die, he'd just take them...." stuff that I don't take lightly, nor do I often ascribe to some of the thought processes involved.

So, I guess the bottom line is that I'm glad I didn't have to worry about making these types of decisions for my sweetheart.

Maybe that is where the line is drawn with my faith, I don't know?  To watch that young woman care for her husband showed the ultimate in sacrifice and love toward him.  Seemingly, anyway.

Yet.

I'm certain Heavenly Father knew that there was no way that I could care for Adam in that state--AND our children.  I can't even imagine.  Really, I can't.  It's hard enough right now.  Not only that but people in "that" state rarely live past a few years.  It truly is a matter of the clock before pressure sores, pneumonia, infection, etc.  People like Christopher Reeve who likely could've had the most expensive and best care imaginable still couldn't be kept alive.  Granted, he actually could communicate and show some sort of response for a while.  It must be an unbelieveably frustrating thing to be someone who can't communicate due to such a traumatic brain injury, or a stroke, or other disease process.

But it makes me wonder.  How I would've done that.  Could I have if I had to?  I'm tending to think likely not.  That that is where Heavenly Father knew he would've simply found me in the Missouri river, given up.  That might've been the line.  And Adam would NEVER want to live like that, in that state.  Wow.  That just made me remember a whole part of our "what if" conversation that I'd forgotten about until this very second.  Gosh.  Heavenly Father prepared me in ways I couldn't have imagined.  I'm so grateful for some of those last discussions with Adam.

Sometimes I want to be selfish and wish Adam were here in any form--even in a persistant vegetative state.  I get the logic people have of "just keeping them alive."  To be able to put my head on his chest and hear his heart beat.  To stroke his face and head.  To hold his hand.  To kiss him.  Even if he couldn't respond back.  That's the very selfish side of me.  Justifiably selfish!

But, I'm grateful that he didn't suffer, that it truly was an instantaneous event.  I think all of us want to go just "that quick," feeling no pain.

I've read his autopsy.  Because I wanted to.  Yes, it's disturbing.  I knew it would be.  But the one thing that I realized was truly how quick it all happened.  For that I'm grateful, that he didn't suffer.  Time of accident 8:03.  Time pronounced dead, 8:08.  It's all just crazy.  And since I've dealt with death professionally, I think that I initially really worried about his suffering, because I "know" that one's heart doesn't just instantly stop.  I've been in the room as people are taking their last breaths of life, as a heart slowly stops beating.  It's been a terrible thing to have family say "I think my mom passed" and to go put my stethoscope on a fragile body to find that this sweet child of God wasn't, by our human definitions, "dead" yet.  To have to step out of the room to give the family another few minutes before coming back to pronounce a person dead is a very humbling experience.

Yet, to see that telemetry pads were placed on my Adam, that they checked to see if his heart "really" had stopped sometime before that 5 minute mark is one of the only comforts I feel about "how" he died, that he didn't have to sit there, without me by his side to comfort him through last breaths, that it really was simply that quick.

But still.  It doesn't bring him back.  It's just awful.  It will always be awful.  It will never be ok that he died.  My heart breaks all over again.