This Wild and Precious Life

No picture today. If I had one, you wouldn't want to see it. I wish the pictures I've been seeing for the past 22 days were erased from my mind. I know they will be eventually, well, mostly, anyway. My brother has been hanging onto life after bleeding in his brain--more likely than not caused by the drug Coumadin--took him down on January 13. He's been taking Coumadin for several years because of two incidents of life-threatening blood clots, and the last time he asked him how long he had to stay on it, his doctor replied, "For the rest of your life." Only 1 in 1,000 have the side effect that landed him in Neuro ICU 22 days ago. Today my sister-in-law was told that there's an 80% chance he won't survive, and only a 10-20% chance he could go home to constant care, unable to do anything for himself. The more likely scenario is that he would end up in a long-term care facility for the rest of his life. The numbers are pretty overwhelming at times, and today is one of those times. Not that we haven't heard dire reports before. I suppose the longer you hear them, the more they sink in as truth. Or probable truth.

Last week she made the decision to let the doctor do a tracheotomy and move the stomach tube from his nose to his abdomen, both temporary measures. His living will specifically says that he doesn't want to have his life prolonged if there's no chance for a viable life. I don't know his exact words, but I wonder, would he change his mind now about what exactly a "viable life" looks like? Would he want to remain alive to see his grandchildren grow up if he wasn't able to talk to them, if he could do nothing for himself? Too late to ask those specific questions now. This week she faces the decision of whether or not to let the doctor implant a shunt in his brain to drain the intercranial fluid that continues to build pressure. The tube that's been doing that for 22 days has got to come out by Thursday because infection will set in, and that may also take his life. How does one decide how someone's life should end when the choices seem to be slowly or more slowly, pain or more pain? The guidelines are fuzzy. He remains semi-conscious and unable to tell us.

Neither of us--my husband and I--has a living will, or medical proxy. We will soon, however, but that doesn't mean we know what we will want if the time comes to enact it. It almost seems like a living will is a defense against American medicine, because if we didn't have all these great life-saving procedures, it probably would have been over for him days ago. How many supposedly life-saving procedures do I want to endure, or watch my loved ones endure? And then, what if after keeping him alive for several months, he defies all the odds and regains 90% of what he had? How long does one keep holding on to that hope? No answers...

He's been my brother for over 63 years; he's loved and respected as a father, husband, banker, and sibling. He's had a fruitful life, but 63 years is too short, especially when I consider the fact that I'm just 22 months younger. But we don't get to write our own scripts, do we? Makes me take an even harder look at my own, and once again ask myself Mary Oliver's haunting question: "What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"