Personal Narrative-Assisted Suicide

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Pages: 9

WHEN MY WORLD COLLAPSED
Imagine this: You live a typical life with your wife Carol. Have friends over for dinner. Watch some TV at night. Maybe take in a movie. Then, less than forty-eight hours later, you're paralyzed from the neck to the toes.
No cataclysmic event foreshadowed this outcome. I wasn't involved in a head-on collision with another vehicle. I didn't tumble down a flight of stairs. A falling tree didn't strike me in the head. True, I had undergone an operation on my right foot in January 1998, but this was considered a success. The only drawback was a persistent cough that kept me awake at nights, for which my family doctor prescribed a decongestant and antibiotic. About a month later I was stricken with double vision. That same day I experienced tingling in my hands and feet. The next morning, February
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The things that kept me going were an irrepressible sense of humor, the indomitable determination to regain one hundred percent of myself, and the faith my wife and I had in God.
I met my primary nurse, Ali, who asked the standard questions for all incoming neurological patients: What day is it? I responded with "I don't know." What year is it? "It is Nineteen ninety-eight." Who was your president? [MOUTHED TO HER] That guy who was fooling around with that girl. Ali burst into laughter, and from that moment we got along splendidly.
One of the complications accompanying Guillain Barre' is a disconnection of motor controls. My body now had to make these connections anew. The process, which was like being probed with electric current, caused nerve pain. The pain occurred when I exerted my muscles. I soon learned how severe that pain could be.
A nurse was taking my blood pressure when the shock hit. With the pressure band on, the pain continued to build. By the time the nurse released the band I was in tears. Thereafter I cautioned nurses about the fragile nature of my