Someone SHOULD have tucked her mother in with fluffy pink pillows. A nurse should CARE whether her patients live or die, and whether they are comfortable. It is far from true that no nurse does care, and I know there are some limits to how involved a nurse can become. A very dear friend of mine worked in a specialized hospital for the terminally ill — seeing patients die comes with the territory. Each one can’t become a life-shattering tragedy for the care-taker, or nobody could handle the job. Still, when a patient says they feel trickling down their throat, someone should care to LOOK before deciding whether it is bleeding or a phantom feeling. Instinct and feel are part of good medicine. Protocols were made for man, not man for the protocols (genetic usage, including women).

Can assisted suicide ever be “warm”? I recall an account by a resident called “It’s Over Debbie.” I believe he genuinely couldn’t stand the pain his patient was in, and perhaps she couldn’t either. On the other hand, I recall a TV review of the treatment of a young woman in England with terminal bone cancer. A daily shot of heroin made it possible for her to move around normally, play with her children, make the most of her last six months. No doctor in the USA would be allowed to give her heroin, but everything has its proper purpose as well as its potential for abuse.

I sympathize with the notion that if I lose control, this body will no longer be me — just as a prefrontal lobotomy would rob me of a great deal of myself. But I prefer in that event to let nature take its course — that leaves room for miracles, without unduly prolonging the inevitable. Meantime, I’d like to know that I am more than just a statistic in a flow chart.