PULL THE PLUG


"Here lies a man with a good brain and heart that could go on for years. But now that he’s on the respirator, his life will only become harder. The respirator creates complications that will be very hard for him to endure. If he lives, it will be a very painful existence. There is no hope. The best thing we can do for him is let him go. Now, who’s going to pull the plug?"

This is the essence of a statement made boldface to my parents, my wife, and her parents by a doctor in a conference room. It wasn’t said by Dr. Frank or Dr. Bregman. They were always optimistic and supportive. It was made by a doctor on call for that particular day who seemed all but ready to make a call of his own... to the resident priest.

In the meantime, I was laying on the roto bed turning, turning, turning... My nose was in constant pain from the plastic tube that provided my feeble lungs their only link to life giving oxygen. I had become imprisoned by paralysis and unvoluntarily silenced, unable to to convey my complaints. Even if I had praise for God, Whom I hadn’t given up on yet, my song was suppressed.

Had I thought of that? Pull the plug? This was all so new to me. I didn't know what lies ahead of a person paralyzed and confined to a respirator. For all I knew it was temporary. I was praying it would be temporary. All I knew at my age was: You get sick, you go to the doctor and get well. Would I get well? What is “well” for me now?

I didn't know how seriously close to death I was. What if I did know? What if I was told, "Mr. Leslie, with an injury to the spinal cord as high as yours is, the diaphragm sometimes fails causing your breathing to stop. This is what has happened to you. You are now on life support from which you may never be released. There is a small chance you can be weaned from the respirator but to say it will be difficult task would be gross understatement.

"You do have the option, however, to be medicated until you are gently put into a deep sleep. Then we will turn off the respirator and you will wake up with God. The choice is yours."

At the very best I will be like Joni, totally paralyzed in a wheelchair forever. At the worst, I will be confined to the respirator forever. What are my chances? What are the odds? Quad or God? Suffering or Solace? Wheelchair or Wings? Which would I have chosen?

But I wasn't given the choice. I had to trust the experience of my doctors who generally think of death as failure. Dr. Bregman considered my age, my strength, and my potential and believed my odds of survival -- of beating the respirator -- were good. Life may mean confined to a wheelchair but it is life nevertheless. Pull the plug? Fail? Not as long as he was on the case.

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