Whose Body is it, Anyway? ANNALS OF MEDICINE about medical advice to patients who make bad choices about their personal care… Writer tells about a patient he calls Joseph Lazaroff, who wanted an operation to remove a tumor from his spine… A biopsy showed an untreatable cancer… He had two options left. He could undergo spinal surgery. It wouldn’t cure him—surgery or not, he had at the most a few months left—but it offered a last-ditch chance of halting the progression of spinal-cord damage and possibly restoring some strength to his legs and sphincters… The alternative was to do nothing. He’d go home and continue with hospice care, which would keep him comfortable and help him maintain a measure of control over his life. The immobility and incontinence would certainly worsen. But it was his best chance of dying peacefully, in his own bed, and being able to say goodbye to his loved ones… Tells about a 1984 book, “The Silent World of Doctor and Patient,” by a Yale doctor and ethicist named Jay Katz. It was a devastating critique of traditional medical decision-making, and it had wide influence. In the book, Katz argued that medical decisions could and should be made by the patients involved… Lazaroff wanted surgery and wasn’t dissuaded by the risk… Tells about Lazaroff’s slow post-operative decline… He died fourteen days later… Writer describes examples of doctorly manipulation regarding medical care and tells about his daughter’s bout of apnea… He entrusted the decision for her care to other physicians… I needed Hunter’s physicians to bear the responsibility: they could live with the consequences, good or bad… It turns out that patients commonly prefer to have others make their medical decisions… Writer discusses medical ethics… As the field grows ever more complex and technological, the real task isn’t to banish paternalism; the real task is to preserve kindness… Tells about a patient who passed out after refusing a respirator, and who—when he eventually revived and began to recover—thanked the physicians who had intubated him anyway…

Whose Body Is It, Anyway? — Longreads

On the uncertain fate of our bodily remains.

On the uncertain fate of our bodily remains.

Cheaters have lined their pockets with our gelt.

“Looking’towards the future
We were begging for the past
Well we know we’d had the good things
But those never seemed to last
Oh please just last…”

“Missed the Boat” by Modest Mouse

Did I waste today? What was I focused on?

Did I waste yesterday? Why was I so mad? Why did I let them hurt me? Why did I care? I was free! I was me!

Did I ever write that chapter? Did I ever live that love?

Will I find Heaven as it should be? Me being able to watch a video of my life with a tear and a smile?

Or will my Heaven be Hell, where I watch a video of my life with my head in my hands.

The choice is mine. I do not want to let go of this opportunity of life.

I will not look back and wonder how my life vanished. Why I wasted it with anger, frustration, blame and tears.

I choose Heaven – to watch the video of my life with a smile and happy tears

I choose happiness.

I choose today.

So that tomorrow, I will love yesterday.

1. Physical or mental strength, energy, or force: Our vigor was depleted by the hot weather.

2. The capacity for natural growth and survival, as of plants or animals.