I promised some details of my camping adventures. Essentially, driving between provinces provided a decent amount of time for deep conversations. One of them went something like this:
Taking one extreme to its completion, treating medical conditions like high blood pressure or diabetes is life-support. While some people have moral/ethical objections to machines that keep people alive, for example in the ICU (respirators to keep you breathing, dialysis machines when your kidneys can't filter out enough crap, and defibrilators and pacemakers to keep your heart ticking), treatment for less acute illness rarely is questioned these days. However, the goal of any medical treatment is either to prolong life or to improve quality of life.
Quality of life is a whole other discussion that didn't take place on a road somewhere in Saskatchewan. It was the intervention into length of life that I wished to talk about. I questioned whether or not it was appropriate for myself, as a health care professional, to be so presumptuous as to play god in this manner. Who am I to esteem a long life? Now an answer was not found under the prairie sky that day, but these are the questions and points that still remain:
(1) Whether God causes illness and/or allows illness, presumably it's all a part of 'the plan'. (Perhaps the presence or lack of "the plan's" existence/necessity is worth a discussion in the future.)
(2) Presumably God could/would intervene at any point and allow or disallow a medical intervention to an individual, according to 'the plan'.
(3) People should use their gifts, talents, abilities and knowledge to do good unto others. (Again, is prolonging life a good thing?)
(4) Is there a line in medical treatment that should not be crossed when it comes to length of life? (How does one treat chronic conditions [heart disease, blood pressure, kidney disease, diabetes, mental illness, thyroid disease etc] vs acute ones [infection, trauma]? Is there (should there be) a difference when it comes to treating the young vs the old? What if a person choose not to treat a chronic condition and now they end up in hospital with a complication? What about life support?)
I don't have answers. I don't know if there should be answers. But an answer would sure be nice.
All I know is that if it wasn't for incredible medical intervention my boyfriend whom I love dearly would be dead right now. He broke his neck 6 years ago and is a C5-C6 quadriplegic. His quality of life is great, but if it wasn't for that intervention, I never would have met him! Yeah...you asked some great questions though!