Life is never what you expect
By Canton CitizenDear Editor:
Life is never what you expect. In the October 6, 2012 article from The Daily Beast titled “Heaven is Real: A Doctor’s Experience with the Afterlife,” Dr. Eben Alexander retells a harrowing account of a week in 2008 when his life teetered between life and death. Upon waking one morning, Dr. Alexander’s entire cranial cortex — the section of the human brain controlling emotion and thought — ceased. Hours later in the emergency room, doctors determined Dr. Alexander’s chance for survival as “near nonexistent.”
Facing an inescapable vegetative state, some doctors would pronounce Dr. Alexander medically “brain-dead,” incapable of future recovery. Rare bacterial meningitis had begun devouring his brain. Life is never what you expect. Seven days pass. Doctors consider terminating treatment of Dr. Alexander, when suddenly his eyes burst open. Against all odds statisticians can crunch, Dr. Alexander survived, recovered, and continued his life prior to this harrowing week.
Life is never what you expect. If Massachusetts citizens do not vote “no” on ballot question #2 next week and legalize doctor-prescribed suicide, your ill neighbors expected to survive no more than six months may be asked to devour a bottle of pills within minutes to prematurely end their lives.
Doctors diagnosed my 59-year-old father with three different malignant cancers since 2003. In each occurrence, he persevered through months of chemotherapy or tumor-removing surgeries. Last month, my father raced a 5K in South Boston. Everyone has ill relatives: mothers with breast cancer, fathers with heart disease, and grandparents with dementia. Many have prognoses of less than six months. Many live beyond their prognosis. I certainly hope my father always does.
Are we prepared to insist they decide whether their life is worth living under unexpected tragic circumstances? Question #2 on your ballot presumes this would dare be a reasonable option. The proposed law is euthanized of reason. The Massachusetts Medical Society opposes it. My father opposes it. Will you oppose it? Life is never what you expect.
Sincerely,
Christopher Thomas
Short URL: https://www.thecantoncitizen.com/?p=17050
Posted by Canton Citizen
on Oct 31 2012. Filed under From One Citizen to Another, Opinion.
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