Personal Narrative-Assisted Suicide

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 …show more content…
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

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