HW 32-Thoughts following Illness & Dying unit

  What I believe are some of the most nightmarish practices in our culture that deal with the topic of Illness & Dying are for instance the hospital situations a large amount of Americans get themselves with. For example, open heart surgery is a plain out nightmare. I mean the surgeons open your chest up for christ sake and operate on the organ that is most vital to your life. Another instance in the hospital atmosphere could just be being hooked up to a breathing machine because you can't breath by your self. Think about how horrible that is..., you can't even expand and retract your own lungs, how must that feel, how powerless would you feel in that position? Even the topic of Suicide which I discussed in my project in my last post, I feel can be classified as nightmarish. Although I say that it can be nightmarish to some people I feel that it just as well can be classified as an alternative practice in our culture around Illness & Dying. I say this because someone could see the act of committing suicide a sickness and a nightmare in one instance but the person actually committing suicide could just as well in the other had see the act as a form of salvation from their personal suffering. As well another alternative could be hooking up a morphine machine to yourself in your last days of your life.  But to bring this post to an end overall what I've learned in this unit now at its end will most defiantly change the way I percieve Illness & Dying and the way I will  handle in from now on. I feel that I will lead my life a lot better now knowing what I have learned in this unit.