October 11, 2007

• Condemned to Live

  Pretty dramatic title, isn’t it?  In case you missed my earlier posts about pneumonia and how hard I have been working to breathe, or caught them and desire an update, this one is about my Will to Live.  A strong will to live has been ascribed to me by various medical personnel, my mother, and a few others who have gotten to know me in this lifetime.

  That makes me wonder whether one’s Will to Live is an unconscious thing, or whether those people who accused me of having one were just full of shit.  Some of those times that my supposedly strong will to live has come up in conversation have been immediately following unsuccessful suicide attempts.  “Unsuccessful,” of course… what a silly thing to say!  I guess what I mean to say is that I have consciously and sincerely tried to die, and failed.

  I have seen how very fragile life can be, how easily extinguished by accident, a blow struck in anger, tiny microorganisms… more ways than I can imagine.   Then there was the time that a medical misadventure rendered me devoid of vital signs, but in that case there was an old Master Sergeant corpsman nearby, ready to step in and correct the mistake made by a young officer with a medical degree.  Even Mama would have a hard time ascribing that one to my will to live.  On the other hand, I have been intimate witness to the tenacity with
  which this flawed and damaged body of mine clings to life, or my life
  force clings to it… whichever.

  During my recent pneumonia crisis, when drawing breath was such an effort, and all the effort I could give it was giving me such small rewards, my anoxic brain asked the question, “Why do I keep trying?”  No answer popped into my mind immediately, so when I had caught my breath sufficiently to do so, I consulted an oracle.  The answer I got from it had the ring of truth for me:  at this time, it is more for others that I’m living than for myself.  [It now occurs to me that if I make it through to summer, I'll be able to live for myself again.]

  Last night there was another crisis.  It didn’t hit me suddenly, but came after a couple of days of little sleep, lots of coughing, getting short of breath each time I moved around, but able to catch my breath and breathe relatively easily between coughing fits and excursions to the kitchen or the outhouse.  Then, after dark, when the temperature dropped into the teens (F), I stepped out the door and the cold air took my breath away.  I stumbled to the outhouse for a rest, but was unable to catch my breath.

  I yelled for Doug to bring my nebulizer and albuterol.  By the time I had inhaled enough to get enough oxygen to stumble back into the house, I was shivering from the cold.  I sat shivering for a long time, concentrating all the effort I could muster on taking the deepest breaths I could manage.  As soon as I could speak, but before I was thinking clearly, I asked Doug if there was any good reason to go on trying so hard to keep breathing.  How moronic!  If such questions are to be asked, one asks oneself, not one’s offspring.

  But he had an answer for me.  He told me that, for selfish reasons, he would prefer that I keep on.  He’s looking ahead to next summer, too.  He went on to say he had imagined taking his driving lessons with Greyfox.  I laughed, just a little, not enough to trigger a cough or get me out of breath.  Then I said, “There’s always your dad,” and he laughed, long and heartily.

  He set up a honey bucket for me in the bathroom, and arranged a clear path for me, with things to lean on along the way, then he went to bed about 5 AM.  Not having to go out in the cold is going to make life easier for me, but that path to the bathroom is too long.  I made it into the hallway a while ago, and was very glad to find an empty coffee can along the way.  Ah, well, lah dee dah, life goes on.

  

  • 1:59 pm
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