HW 29

Facing Terminal Illness
Facing terminal illness is tough and can drastically change a person's life because they know they are going to die soon. This was discussed by our guest speaker Beth who's husband died from cancer. It was also discussed in Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. With Beth's experience her husband didn't let the terminal illness change how he lived. He stayed strong and tried to be positive and stay alive for long as possible. In Tuesdays with Morrie, Morrie embraced his terminal illness and understood what it meant. He made himself try to enjoy letting other's take care of him. "I'm an independent person, so my inclination was to fight all of this-being helped from the car, having someone else dress me. I felt a little ashamed, because our culture tells us we should be ashamed if we can't wipe our own behind",(page 116). He knew he was going to die but still tried to enjoy life even as he got worse and worse. He learned to enjoy his dependency on others as he got worse because it seemed familiar to him and reminded him of being a baby. So everyone is going to die eventually you just have to learn to enjoy the time you have left.

The process of dying
The process of dying can be very different depending on how and where the person is dying. It can become very complicated if the person is dying in a hospital which was shown in the documentary Near-Death. The doctors have to decide if they should try to keep the patient alive and whether or not it's worth it to keep them alive. On top of that they have to keep into consideration what the family of the patient wants, and what the patient said they want. So it can be very complicated and hard to decide when they want to let the patient die. In our guest speaker's experience she brought her husband home he died at home with his wife and son taking care of him. This process seemed much more peaceful then at an isolated hospital with doctors all around you while you're dying.

Paying for medical care
Paying for medical care is the number one cause for debt in America. It is very expensive and makes it very hard for people to get care and it is nearly impossible to afford medical care if you don't have health insurance. This is shown in the movie Sicko by Michael Moore. It is like putting a price on being healthy. In fact in Sicko it shows this man who got into an accident and cut off two of his fingers so he went to the hospital and they told him that he could reattach his middle finger for $60,000 or reattach his ring finger for $12,000. So he could only afford to reattach his ring finger because it was too expensive to pay for both. The U.S. refuses to switch to universal healthcare which has proved to be successful in countries such as France and England. The U.S. healthcare system is ranked 37th (http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2000/en/pr2000-44.html).