By Ox Drover
A thought struck me the other day as I was musing ”¦ many people today have at least thought about how they want things to proceed when they come toward the end of their lives. Do they want to be “kept on life support” with feeding tubes and ventilators and lying unconscious in an intensive care nursing unit?
Is that kind of “life” really anything but prolonging drying? Or, is it possible that if you stayed there with mechanical life support, that you might actually wake up and heal, and go on and enjoy more time in a healthy life? Many of us have made decisions which we have placed into “Living Wills” and have appointed someone to be our decision maker if we can’t make our own decision at the time. (BTW if you don’t have a living will which is legally valid, your nearest relative or your spouse will be automatically appointed.)
When the time came to make the decision about providing life support for my husband with the terrible burns he had, between the medical knowledge I had about his chances of survival (zero) and his wishes, there was no decision to make, nothing could have helped him live longer, only prolong the unavoidable.
In my career as a registered nurse practitioner I have watched families vacillate over whether to put their loved one on mechanical life support, to take them off, or put in a feeding tube or to take one out. I have seen them cry and fight and have seen childhood jealousies come to the front to make decisions which should have been made by a cooler head.
Life support and psychopaths
As I was musing about these physical end of life life-supports, I thought about the fact that sometimes in my relationships I’ve done the same thing. I’ve kept a relationship that was essentially “brain dead and suffering” on life support, loath to let it die a natural and peaceful death by just not sustaining it artificially any more. Hoping against hope that it might improve if I just gave it enough time and energy. Later realizing that I had expended a tremendous amount of energy sustaining this relationship which only became sicker and sicker, sucked away resources I could have used for other more positive things.
Looking back, hindsight is always 20/20, I can see that I kept my relationship with my psychopathic son on life-support from the time he was 17, and when I went to the local jail to get him, as he walked up to me and my husband he said, “What the f&%k took you so long?” At that time, I said to the jailer, “Sir, there’s a problem, this isn’t my son, because my son wouldn’t talk to me like that, take this young man back upstairs.” Right then I had seen the relationship was dead, there was no mutuality about it, there was no respect for me, or for my position as his mother.
But I couldn’t conceive that my relationship with my son couldn’t be somehow miraculously saved by some magical miracle so that “everything would be all right.”
So because I couldn’t stand the thought or the pain of pulling the rest of the life support for the relationship, I put it back on life support and kept it there for decades after that. Even when it took turns for the worse and he wound up not just in juvy jail, but it big-boy’s prison for a felony robbery, then back again for murder.
I kept on refusing to let myself disconnect from the corpse of our relationship, refused to let it die a natural death , and feel the grief. In my prolonged denial of how seriously flawed our relationship was, I tortured myself with hope. Hope that was unfounded on reality, malignant hope that my son might survive inside this corpse of a soul.
Had to pull the plug
Eventually there came a time when I realized that the relationship was not repairable. I could not, medicine could not, nothing could fix the relationship, and in addition the relationship on life support was poisoning everything about itself—including me. It was requiring all the energy I had to keep it as the living dead. It was a source of contagion that used my energy, infected other relationships around it and me. I had to pull the plug and let it go, in order to survive.
I actually had a memorial service for the boy that was, the little boy I had grown to love so much, oh gosh was he cute, but he’s no longer living, and my relationship with him is only in my memory. Just as my late husband and I are only in my memory. Yet, by letting both of them go, and doing the appropriate and painful grieving, I have released those good memories to be enjoyed and loved the rest of my life.
Nothing should outlast its time. When something is dead or broken and can’t be fixed, it is time for us to let it go. Cherish the memories if we can, but let the rest of it go.
OxDrover,
Just read about your dog – so sorry! You’re in my thoughts today. My children and I are getting ready for a vacation, going to Georgia to spend time with another sister (a nurse) and her family. Peace to you.
Ox,
I am saddened for your loss. Deeply saddened.
I know how hard it is. And I understand how tough it is on you.
Great Article.
Tough that you have had to go through it all- that any of us have because all the travails of life belong to us as well.
I don’t think we can understand why, there is no way to. WE can as you make example of, accept and go on.
The loss of a creature companion- a good – no, a great dog, impales our hearts because that was a friend who could be counted on no matter where, no matter when.
My heart goes out to you and then to us all. We are lucky to be here with you.
I’d like to send up a little prayer for Oxy and Boss. I’m not the praying kind, but I’ll make and exception out of respect to Oxy (and Wini) who’ve kind of brought me a little closer to ‘the guy in the sky’ which is as close as I can come to God right now!
Boss Dog
Named for ‘the Hog’
Stood up straight
Knew fear but left it
at the gate
Was brave
and true
and sometime be seeing you (my darlin’)
Oxy that he loved
and she loved you
That’s my little prayer anyway – hope it’s not too silly
Send prayers please-I go back to the neurologist today to get cleared for work. The employee health nurse said that he gave her a huge attitude and refused to sign me off without seeing me today. I am NO different today than I was on Monday–nothing wrong with me! I had a huge narcissism vibe from him as soon as I saw him the other day. I challenged him and it pissed him off. I am worried that he is going to come up with another bogus reason to keep me off work. I don’t know what I’m gonna do if he doesn’t clear me.
Am praying hard babe!
I got lots of luck right now and I’m gonna give a whole chunk of it to you for free cos you deserve it!
Just lay low Erin and charm the snake – stay cool as a cucumber lovely. You can definitely do this!
xxx
Delta 1
Delta1-thanks. I worry because my ex is a malignant narcissist and I can pick them out in 5 minutes flat now. I also know that you are NOT SUPPOSED to challenge them because they get evil and come out fighting. With the anger that I still evidently have, I get around them and want to come out boxing. It is going to be really hard to be cool, calm, and collected when he has my job/$$$ under his control.
Worst case scenerio according to the employee health nurse–if he won’t clear me, we’re going to have to find me another neurologist in town and hope that they don’t make me wait months to see them. I guess a lot of docs don’t want anything to do with workman’s comp cases. If that happens then I have to go on disability, which doesn’t pay me my whole salary. This could be really bad if he decides to be an ass about this!
Ah yes
Hypervigilence is a bitch. You want to be a police officer and I work in child protection social work. This isn’t the first or only time this issue is gonna come up for you believe me!!!
Hun this is a professional issue – we need to be cold as stone, hard as steel in order tobe kick ass professionals and get RESULTS against abusers. So if you can can see this as a professional challenge it may help to find the necessary focus. It feels sooooo good to take perps to the mat! Do what you gotta do luvly. Don’t be afraid – but do lots of research!!
This guy has a certain power and that’s why you’re triggering – but honestly if this way doesn’t work you’ll find another, you need to take the heat out of the situation. Bury your emotions RIGHT DOWN for this day and focus on WINNING for all of us who need peeps like you in the job!!!
I will be with you every step of the way in spirit luv. If this doesn’t work you WILL find another way.
Best wishes
Delta 1
Thanks babe-I think that it’s so cool that you work in the same general area that I’m going to be in. I want to work in DV/sex crimes unit in my PD and do accident fatalities as well-since I am a trauma nurse. Thanks for the prayers and being with me.
I am going to focus and be cool. The occ health nurse hinted that he was going to be difficult today. I won’t entertain him by arguing with him. I gotta go-puttin on makeup so I can leave! Thanks-I’ll let you know how it turns out this afternoon.
Thank you all for your comments and cyber hugs and for the poem and prayers….believe it or not it means so much.I did get a pretty good nights sleep last night and woke up feeling like carp, but that’s the result of the STRESS HORMONES….I used to feel this stressed out ALL the times, as it is, I know what it is and that it will PASS with some time. As deep as my loss is, it will not remain this painful forever….the stress and grief will process it out until I can feel joy in the memories again, rather than start myself crying because of them.
Another thing that is NOT painful about the loss of someone you love through natural causes, is that you don’t have to deal with the BETRAYAL because they DIDN’T DO THIS ON PURPOSE to hurt you!
Erin72, Delta’s advice is good, when you work with DV or child abuse, or elder abuse—whatever kind it is—-professionally, you must keep your cool, be objective about it. If we allow our emotions to get involved in it we may not see the obvious, so we have to be objective, not subjective.
Back when I worked in spinal cord and head injury rehab, I made myself a promise, if i cried all the time I would get out situation, I couldn’t be objective. If I NEVER cried about a patient, I was too Objective and didn’t have enough compassion. I would get out of that Job. In rehab the joke used to be they hired nurses who pulled wings off butterflies when we were kids, because we had to be tough, to make the patients reach for the ring, to work as hard as they could. We couldn’t coddle them.
My best friend for the last 30 years is the mother of a former patient of mine—he still calls me “the nurse from hell!” But I’m the first one he calls if he has a question even today! But he is alive today because all the “nurses” from hell that worked there pushed him to do the most he could do for himself, and to learn what his caregivers needed to do so that he wouldn’t get complications and die—wouldn’t get bedsores etc. like the one that killed “Superman”—My friend’s son has been a quad for almost 30 years and he is still healthy and doing well because of the “nurses from hell.” He lives independently, is married, finished most of a college degree in computer science and has a life!
One of the things I learned in working in Rehab is that we can DO what we set our minds to—-up to the limits of our abilities! And sometimes we sell our abilities short! We are much more than the sum of our parts!
Gosh, I’ve been away for a couple days. Oxy, I am sooo sorry about your dear Boss Dog. We were just talking about dogs the other day… I know your heart is still breaking. I’ve been there with several myself, and there is nothing that helps but time. The fond memories help through the worst pain.
He sounds like a GREAT dog! I do know that Border Collies are probably the smartest breed of all. I love them. If I had the time to do tricks and things, that’s what I’d get next time, but my boring Golden is perfect now.
I hope you can get a pup from his sister. For me, the sooner I can get another pup the better. Not that you love the other one less, but it is nice to not only have the other new dog, but you are giving that new dog a chance to be treated wonderfully because you are such a great person. The Golden that I have is the 2nd cousin of the one that died 6 years ago, and she looks so much like her, but has the personality of the one we just lost last year!
Dogs are like family, and I, for one, would love to hear more about him as you start to feel better and want to remember the good times you had. Take care, Oxy.