If I Stop Treatment Will I Start Dying

By Barbara Karnes

If I stop treatment does it mean I stop trying? If I stop trying does it mean I’ll start dying? I don’t want to die.

When faced with the above considerations, what decision do we make? How do we face the realization “I am going to die”?

Most of us go through life with the notion that other people die, not me or anyone close to me. Yet for all of us that bubble of illusion will someday break.

If we don’t die a fast death, by accident (no warning), we will die a gradual death from disease or old age. Either way someday all of us will die. How do we prepare for that day? Do we or should we prepare for that day?

I don’t have a one size fits all answer to those questions. Each of us will prepare for our eventual (assumed gradual) death in our own way, according to our personality. Doer personalities will have their advanced directives and Five Wishes completed and filed away. They will have talked with their family and significant others years before that information will be needed. A procrastinator personality may never address their advanced directives even though they may have given it some thought. An easy going personality ——it goes on and on. Think about who you are and how you are addressing your eventual death…

Read Full Article