{"id":93,"date":"2007-12-21T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-21T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/2007\/12\/21\/how-we-die\/"},"modified":"2008-01-14T20:17:29","modified_gmt":"2008-01-15T04:17:29","slug":"how-we-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/2007\/12\/how-we-die\/","title":{"rendered":"How We Die"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
<\/td>\nHow We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sherwin B. Nuland<\/em>ISBN: 978-0679742449<\/p>\n

Pub. Date: January 15, 1995<\/p>\n

Publisher: Vintage<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

House<\/em> is a popular TV series about a medical doctor trying to solve some very difficult cases.<\/p>\n

Death fascinates me like life. Sherwin Nuland, a practicing medical doctor, depicted death with autopsy clarity. It is a freaky, moving, and addictive book. It is also a wonderful book to learn some basic medical terminologies; my appreciation on House<\/em> is now greatly enhanced.<\/p>\n

Except for by trauma, such as gun shot, car accident, etc., death is a process that takes a lifetime; it is not an event that terminates a person. Fearing or trying to avoid it is not acknowledging life itself. That said, there are certainly smart things to do to enhance its quality or not shortening it unnecessarily.<\/p>\n

Note that Dr. Nuland does not believe one can live beyond the length programmed by one’s genes. It appears cells can only divide a finite number of times, organs will gradually lose their efficiency, and entropy in the system can only increase. Modern medicine has not found a way to reverse this process yet.<\/p>\n

Dr. Nuland stopped short of promoting assisted suicide. The medical profession and institutes dispense excessive amount of resources just to maintain signs of life. Since death is a process, and not an event, there is really nothing to avoid and meaningless to catch just few more breaths.<\/p>\n

He admitted it is easier said than done in a painful and emotional story regarding his own brother. He seemed to be trying to convince himself with those grueling chapters on AIDS and cancer death: their inevitable ugly and painful processes. Where is dignity, where is social responsibility, where is humanity, to prolong their suffering while dispensing away resources?<\/p>\n

I rewrote my living will and checked my medical power of attorney after reading this book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter Sherwin B. NulandISBN: 978-0679742449 Pub. Date: January 15, 1995 Publisher: Vintage House is a popular TV series about a medical doctor trying to solve some very difficult cases. Death fascinates me like … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}