Don't Focus on Dying!

[joelc]

Originally Posted by BethU

Joel ... I'll butt out on this subject in the future. You already know my practical considerations, and your optimism has caused me (and many others) to investigate the subject further.

I think you are doing a great public service by providing a counter argument to the doom and gloom view of doctors. Keep on carrying the message of living life to the fullest ... to the very last drop.

Thanks Beth, but please do not butt out!

All this interaction and different views are important as they really help to clarify what each of us are trying to say. And that is good.

[pvale]

I'm sorry Joel, for what I wrote above, it's nothing on you or what you wrote, just my own personal situation. I'm a long way from needing a trache, and things may change by that time. They won't give my wife a kidney because I can't handle caregiving for her, and right now they say they won't give me a trache, because she is unable to be an effective caregiver. No. I'm definatly not ready to die, and would do anything possible to extend my time here that I can. I'm 54 years old, and think I have a lot of time left for the normal span of a man's life. It's so hard to focus on anything else, when all those around you act like you are under a death sentence. I hope the statistic changes, because of those of you that extend your lives with mechanical ventilation. I hope I can be a part of that statistic when the time comes, but those people around me are pretty pessimistic.

Perry