Big thanks to you, my Schiavo-esque in-laws, for deciding to keep my severely brain-damaged mother-in-law alive for four years now. Who wouldn't want to have a feeding tube, trach, catheter, and two nurses on them at all times? I mean, we all know how extremely private she was. She never let me see her in shorts, because she didn't like her legs. Of course she'd want strangers changing her diapers. Adding to the fun: her inability to talk, write, or move in any meaningful way, and you changing her living will to reflect her "new desires." How did she communicate these desires, by the way? Hmmm. She can't talk or sign or write. You don't let a severely brain-damaged person make these decisions; that's why in her original living will she asked to only be kept alive if it were reasonable to think that she could recover or when a doctor said that there's hope. Did you totally forget that her CATHOLIC doctor came to your house and told you that he could no longer work the case because it was morally unethical to keep her alive? That was two years ago. But you're right, her life is TOTALLY worth living. She's been in the hospital receiving dialysis for six months now, because her fucking body is trying to SHUT DOWN AND DIE. Oh, and the extremely painful bedsores and shingles that she's been experiencing? Totally RAD!

Death is not that scary. Living like she has for the last four years—that's everyone's worst nightmare. recommended