Last night, randomly, we ended up watching Frontline: Living Old. It was very thoughtful, engrossing and disturbing. Since I visisted my parents back in June to talk about living wills and such, and since I’m about to go back to Colorado for Thanksgiving, and since (for whatever reason) I’ve been thinking about how much my life has changed in the last fifteen years, it articulated a lot of stuff that’s been in my head. Scary stuff, I guess; the kind of subject you just don’t bring up in conversation every day. Things that we hardly talk about in society.
I’m confident that my parents don’t wish to be kept alive in a vegetative state, that they’ll allow their bodies to fail when quality of life begins to slip away. There are living wills and the like in place. And I’m very relieved that my brother is actually competent at the business end of the things and all the legal mumbo jumbo so that he can deal with that when the time comes.
The show made me think about my grandfather, Grandpa Truman. He was in his mid-70’s and doing fairly well; he couldn’t drive anymore because his vision was failing, but he could get around pretty well with his cane and still had an appetite, his mind was sharp, he didn’t just sit around all day. Well, for whatever reason, my grandmother put the thought in his head that he needed to get a hip replacement surgery. Completely nonessential, but she convinced him to get it. He had the surgery and there were complications. He went into ICU. I visited him once; he was conscious but couldn’t move or talk. He just squeezed my hand, very hard, and looked at me. He died within a few days. The point is, he went in for a surgery that he didn’t need and it ended up killing him. My grandmother outlived him by several years, eventually moving into a nursing home where she died.
I don’t want a hip replacement when I get that old. In fact, I think I can handle the failings of the body if my mind is still sharp and if I can still articulate my thoughts. It’s my mind slipping away that scares me. There are moments even now when I have the realization that my mind, my memory aren’t what they were fifteen years ago. Things I can’t remember, times when it’s hard to put thoughts into words. I don’t know how I’ll deal with senility if it comes. I guess, really, if it does come I won’t have to deal with it at all. I won’t be able to. I won’t have that control.
