Embracing Death

Those in the medical profession are familiar with a DNR order. A DNR means Do Not Resuscitate, which basically means that the person with this order does not want to be brought back to life if his lungs and heart stop working. In order words, do not do CPR or any other methods that would bring this person back to life.

Why in the world would someone want to have this order? Doesn't this person value life? Isn't this person thinking about friends and family? Why does this person want to be left for dead?

Well, people have plenty of reasons why they would have a DNR order. If a person's heart stop working and they are not breathing, they are considered to be clinically dead. Clinical death - where the lungs and heart stop working - is seen as fixable, whereas biological death - where brain cells decay as well as with the rest of the body - is seen as permanent. DNR order is to tell the rescuer to not do anything with the patient if he is clinically dead, so if there is a chance to bring this person "back to life," the rescuer should forget about it and just break the news to the family.

At first when I was taught about a DNR, I really didn't know what to think of it. But the more I looked into it, the more I think that having a DNR order isn't such a bad idea. That is, if you could embrace death.

If you were clinically dead and someone brought you back to life, there could be some very negative consequences. You could be permanently brain damaged and spend the rest of your life in a vegetative state, you might be in a coma, you may lose some function of your body, or perhaps you were already in bad shape and you know that if you were resuscitated (brought to life), then you would continue to spend your life in pain.

If you spent your life attached to tubes and wires, cannot do anything for yourself, and had to spend your life in the nursing home, would you want to be resuscitated if you "crapped out?" What if you were only kept alive through machines, would you want to be kept on life support or have them plug the plus? What if you were just a head? Would you want to be kept alive or left for dead?