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Volume 5, No. 2
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Facing death How someone deals with life-threatening illness
isn't a matter for pubic speculation It was a long time ago, but seems like only yesterday, when I first spent the night with a dying patient, sitting by his bed, as we both waited for the inevitable. He was only 24, and I wasn't very much older, and I had been his confidante and advisor since he was diagnosed with the cancer that would claim his life. But he was the first of many such people I would work with, some of whom I was closer to than others. I tell you this only to establish that I know a little bit about dying people and how they face their end, for I was often privy to things they couldn't tell their doctors and wouldn't tell their families. The one similarity that I've noted in everyone facing life-threatening illness is the lack of any similarity. Every person I encountered had a different way of dealing with it, different priorities, desires, and goals. The lesson I took away from all this is that there is no "right" way to do it -- and I learned to respect the choice that an individual makes. All of this came home to me
over the last few weeks in the media dust-up over Now, to the best of my ability I avoid what is laughably called "the mainstream media." Mainly, I read about it, which saves me the time and trouble of throwing shoes and other objects at the bloviating propagandists who pass themselves off as journalists on TV these days, or hurling newspaper and magazines across the room -- where I'm expected to then pick them up again. From what I hear, the tactics ranged from outright hectoring of the Edwards about the choice to mock-grave punditry from people who have no gravitas except in their own press releases, ending with a general pile-on from a gaggle of other gagglers pretending to have some weighty insight into what Elizabeth Edwards should or shouldn't do -- or was or wasn't facing. Without giving a drawn out explanation of why -- something that should be obvious to even the non-observant -- it was a pretty shoddy display of journalistic ethics, although using "journalistic" and "ethics" in the same sentence these days is kind of a dicey business without a negative in there somewhere. By the way, I'm ashamed to say this, because I am, at my core, a journalist. Journalism is where I started my career, where I spent many, years, and where I grew up. I do remember a time when ethical considerations were not only given a place of honor in newsrooms, but -- something difficult to imagine in this era of corporate greed -- often trumped short-term profit. I remember when my colleagues and I would argue for hours over the ethical thing to do, and then do it. Now that newsrooms are seen merely as "cost centers" in large, soulless corporate operations and honor has been swept out the door, that is, for the most part, no longer true. But the journalistic ethics angle is only part of the story. Each of those people who saw Elizabeth Edwards' predicament and her choice of how to face her illness as just more grist for their ratings-producing mill displayed a shocking lack of personal ethics. They have apparently lost all sense of limits. They have lost sight of the boundaries of moral behavior. They challenge us to ask, as Joseph Welch asked the red-baiting senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954, "You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" Years ago, when I first began working with people facing life-threatening illnesses, I got some advice from a wise old priest who was also a physician. He told me, "You should never tell someone they're going to die, unless you can give them something to live for until they die." He also told me that predictions of life expectancy can be brutally wrong. A person you think will die in a month can rally and live another two years. Someone you think will live for five more years could die tomorrow. In the years since getting that advice, I've seen both happen. So, I don't know the extent of Elizabeth Edwards cancer, and I don't know how long she will live -- nor would I speculate on it. And, I won't comment on her decision to support her husband's presidential run, except to say that apparently it's important to her that he continue. Perhaps she feels that this is the last thing that she could give him. Perhaps she feels that she will face her illness more at peace if she knows that the illness didn't derail his dream. Perhaps she feels that her life will have gone better if her husband is elected, or at least runs for, president, even if she isn't around to enjoy the outcome. The bottom line is that it doesn't matter what's behind the choice. What matters is that it is her choice, and the reason for it really isn't a matter for public discussion or speculation. The only other comment I would make would be to the propagandists and faux journalists who have tried to make hay out of this, and that comment would be "shame." Unfortunately, most of these people have proven that they are without shame and, like Joseph McCarthy, have no sense of decency. But they are wealthy. They are having their 15 minutes of fame. And, in today's society I guess that's all that matters. |
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© Copyright 2007 Carlton Vogt |