Mary KennyMy husband was very unwell a few weeks ago – not eating, sleeping all the time. I thought perhaps he was moving towards the departure lounge of life.
He’s an Anglican and we had spoken, in the past, about ‘end of life’ situations. His views were the same as mine. You don’t kill people off; but you may let nature take its course.
I consulted with the GP when Richard seemed to be sinking, and the doctor said I must have a DNR certificate immediately. What, I asked, was that? Sounded like a railway company of old.
“It means,” said the doc, “Do Not Resuscitate.” That sounds alarming – as though you shouldn’t take every reasonable measure to help a person who might have a breathing difficulty or heart problem.
The medic then began to recount some distressing cases that were occurring within general practice in England and Wales.
End of life
When doctors get together they talk anxiously about this situation, he said. If a patient does not have a DNR certificate, the medics feel they have to go to extraordinary measures to revive someone who they might otherwise judge to be moving towards the end of life.
Recently, an old lady of 95 who had a heart attack was subjected to two hours of resuscitation procedures, which caused the breaking of her ribs – it’s necessary to lean heavily on the chest during this treatment. The medical team did get her heart going again, but she died three weeks later – her ribs still broken.
It was explained to me that doctors are terrified they will be sued if they do not take every possible step to rescue every patient from the embrace of death.
The DNR certificate is, certainly, a coldly-phrased bureaucratic document, and one of the carers who helps with Richard’s disabilities said she felt like shedding a tear when she saw it.
In a way, I think it illustrates the confused attitudes that prevail today. On the one hand, there are campaigns for assisted suicide – to kill people off. On the other, there is a reluctance to allow nature to take its course – and to accept that death is indeed a natural part of life, a concept embedded in Christian values.
Richard rallied after a few days, and returned from the departure lounge, thankfully. Yet, isn’t it sad that we now need a certificate to allow us to proceed peacefully through that transit, when our time does come?
Good news for Irish dairy farmers
Many moons ago, the cosmetics queen Estee Lauder told me that “everyone needs a pat of butter every day”. Butter irrigates the skin, she said. And now food scientists are saying that butter is highly beneficial to health. Surely good news for Irish dairy farmers!
It is unwise to boycott something you haven’t seen
Some Christian groups are urging a boycott of the film Fifty Shades of Grey, which is an explicitly sexual movie focusing on sado-masochism.
I think it is unwise to boycott any play, movie or other production that you haven’t yet seen. I admired Mary Whitehouse for her rugged opposition to pornography, but she did make this mistake sometimes – of condemning something she hadn’t seen. And sometimes calling for a boycott only prompts more curiosity – and business – for a product.
Seeing the movie doesn’t interest me – there are so many other things I want to do with my time. But I did read the book to write a review of it, and I thought it a strange confection indeed.
I found it odd that in this day and age, when we call smacking a child ‘physical abuse’, and Government ministers go to great lengths – quite appropriately – to condemn and lament domestic violence, which usually means men hitting women, that a book which exalts a man hitting and hurting a woman (albeit in a sexual game) should be such a runaway success.
The young woman in the story is a virgin – she has held back from the sexual fray – and is strangely attracted to the cruelty of the male protagonist, who soon has her tied up in his torture dungeon (or is it an attic?) in his magnificent mansion.
In the middle of all this hoopla, there is a passage advancing the green message – of how we should take care of the environment and be aware of climate change. How fashionable!
For the most part, I judged it to be pulp fiction that had cottoned on to a commercial bandwagon.
Yet, as they say in Yorkshire “there’s nowt so queer as folks”.
I subsequently met a psycho-therapist who told me that one of her clients had helped restore her problematic marriage by reading Fifty Shades of Grey with her husband. Restoring a marriage is a good outcome, so benefits can emerge even from trash fiction.
