As many of you by now already know, my Christmas 2014 was spent in the high dependency unit of the James Cook University Hospital. What turned out to be a “massive” bladder infection (never one to do anything by halves, you know) became sepsis and ultimately resulted in cardiac arrest. Deck the halls with boughs of holly—for a short while it looked as though I had eaten my last turkey dinner.
As you may already have concluded, however, I was successfully resuscitated and have now been home for a few weeks. All in all, I got off extremely lightly—no major organ damage and, while I still have energy issues, I am steadily getting back to my normal routine.
What I want to address here, however, is something that happened to me while in the HDU, a very short while after my cardiac arrest. This kind of touches upon an earlier post, in which I discussed my thoughts on assisted dying.
Fully compos mentis, but very ill and extremely traumatised, a doctor with whom I was already familiar (I believe he’d been part of the crash team that had resuscitated me), approached me and, after drawing the curtains around us, methodically approached the subject of resuscitation and, should I face a similar scenario in the future, whether I would once more want to undergo this procedure—given the possibilities of complications such as brain damage et cetera.
As I’m sure you will understand, this wasn’t exactly the kind of conversation—in spite of everything that had occurred—I was expecting to have. My prime concern had been how the hell I was going to get through this and find my way in life again. And, yet, here I was faced with an admittedly kindly doctor talking about whether I wanted to do everything possible to hold onto life should the worst happen (again).
Before I discuss my response, I want to make something quite clear: looking back, it’s very easy for me to see, now, that there was a bias on the part of the doctor—or there certainly seemed to be (my parents, who were present, would confirm this, I’m sure). The way the option was presented strongly suggested that he believed the sensible (dare I say “correct”?) decision was to opt for the “do not resuscitate” order. All my previous knowledge about the pros and cons of the procedure, and the simple fact that, in spite of my Type II SMA and all I’d been through, I still wasn’t a prime candidate for a DNR order, went out of the window. It felt wrong to push against it. In short, yes, I felt pressured.
Normally someone whose default setting is to question positions of authority, I—and I still find this quite bizarre—agreed that I wanted the DNR order putting on my file. Should my actually very healthy ticker stop ticking again, the same efforts that had worked very successfully would not be employed!
A few weeks later, another doctor thankfully questioned this. Sitting down beside my bed, he brought the subject up once more, telling me that he’d seen it on my file and that he’d wondered if I still felt the same way. He pointed out that, yes, it was indeed true that we can be resuscitated only to face a quality of life that we might not want, but emphasised that my heart was healthy and I had no history that suggested I was a likely candidate for a DNR order. Relieved that he seemed to be underscoring my feeling that I was not a completely lost cause, I was quick to say that I believed I’d been asked this question at the wrong time, and that I’d felt pressured into the decision I’d made. “So you’d like me to remove it?” he had asked; I’d answered with a very emphatic “yes”.
This is why I believe we have to be very careful about the life and death choices we offer with developments such as the Assisted Dying Bill. Sometimes, simply presenting the option exerts pressure. I am, I’m sure many would argue, not someone who is easily swayed. I’m fairly intelligent, well-informed and not inclined to change my mind without being presented with a convincing argument. And, yet, at, I suppose, my most vulnerable I made a decision that I now believe (and, more to the point, previously believed) I should never have made, a decision that could have had a catastrophic outcome.
I was lucky; I had the opportunity to correct this. But if that second doctor hadn’t questioned it, it might well still have been on my file.
We are all, however we might think of ourselves, highly suggestible. The presentation of a question, its timing and the way in which it’s framed, can quite easily prompt uncharacteristic responses. This is something we all—healthcare professionals and patients alike—need to bear in mind.
©2015 Gary William Murning
Gary William Murning Online 
I’m so glad you are recovering now and this error of timing was put right. On the whole, doctors don’t know their patients and don’t know their lives. I’ve not been in this situation but the LSO (Long Suffering One) has so now when he has heart problems I tell him to let all concerned at the hospital know that he is renovating a house, is a commissaire for British Cycling, is teaching himself to play the clarinet… Too many times medical staff look at us and make judgements they’re not qualified to make.
I’m thinking of getting a tattoo, Lynne 😉 “I’ve still got people to annoy — resuscitate me!”
Reblogged this on talkplatelets.
Thank you!
There are times in life when an unexpected stranger makes their presence known as if on cue from some other world beyond our comprehension. It’s as if they were sent by God, that holy entity who’s sole purpose is to lift us up by the bootstraps after dashing us against the rocks to stimulate our learning curve. So…we wonder how this can be? I’ve been told by many a “New Ager” and the men and women of “the cloth” that Angelic encounters are used by the “Powers that Be” to circumvent what would have been a traumatic (for us) event, because it was not yet our time. It was presumed that we had more to give and more to learn on this Earth plane so our Souls could advance to “Nirvana Land,” much like our childhood game of “Candy Land,” if you wish to believe that.
Yet, at those times of chaos and trauma, when our luck of the draw seems to have run out, we find an incredible sense of relief that someone good has miraculously shown up to save us from certain disaster. It really helps to skew our consciousness in that direction and makes us think that life really does have a higher purpose and our lives, our choices, and even our mistakes were already ordained before we were born, so if we get way off-track, someone is sent in to mop up the mess we made of it and return us to our appointed rounds so we can get on with it before it really was our time to take the dive into the big “Spirit in the Sky.” Well then, it’s up to us to decide, because if the experience was profound and timely, and we were saved in the nick of time by what seemed like an Angelic force, then it wouldn’t be a far stretch of the imagination to admit the existence of more than what we know; Something Good.
I’m glad you are feeling better Gary and the DNR order was removed from your Soul.
God Bless You,
B.
Very grateful of the sentiment, even if we disagree on the detail 😉