Many of my coworkers and patients were Mexican. My Spanish vocabulary increased to a level of a 12 year old, although I would still need a translator to describe a colonoscop
y or diagnosis of HIV to someone. One day my Intern was telling me about “Dia de los muertos”, AKA “Day of the Dead”, a big time holiday in Mexico. Basically little kids get a bunch of sugar skulls (candy) and people take a day off of work. Part of it is appreciating the living, but I think the big deal is celebrating those who have died and wishing them safe passage to the next stage of existence. I don’t know if it’s a major part of the holiday, but this Intern told me that his family writes little vignettes about each member which details a graphic explanation of their manner of death. For example, this guy was an anesthesia intern, so his sister wrote that he became addicted to narcotics and died from an overdose of fentanyl that he was injecting in between cases. He got a good laugh out of that one.
y or diagnosis of HIV to someone. One day my Intern was telling me about “Dia de los muertos”, AKA “Day of the Dead”, a big time holiday in Mexico. Basically little kids get a bunch of sugar skulls (candy) and people take a day off of work. Part of it is appreciating the living, but I think the big deal is celebrating those who have died and wishing them safe passage to the next stage of existence. I don’t know if it’s a major part of the holiday, but this Intern told me that his family writes little vignettes about each member which details a graphic explanation of their manner of death. For example, this guy was an anesthesia intern, so his sister wrote that he became addicted to narcotics and died from an overdose of fentanyl that he was injecting in between cases. He got a good laugh out of that one.To be honest, I was flabbergasted. I always wanted to use that word, and now I have. Flabbergasted is what I was. If someone wrote a story about my untimely death, especially in a comical or slapstick fashion like that, I think I would be pissed. I quietly explained to this guy that his holiday, and partially his culture, was fucked up. His response was that typical Anglo holidays are equally fucked up, and pointed out shit like Halloween, where kids dress up as ghosts and monsters and try to scare people only to be appeased with candy. I had no good reply, because he was right. Halloween was at least as fucked up as Dia de los Muertos, if not more.
Americans may think that Day of the Dead is stupid, particularly because paying so much attention to corpses accomplishes very little. But it’s no more ridiculous than many Americanized holidays. And besides dead people, principally the recently deceased, get a ton of attention. Funerals cost $1000’s and memorial services are always going on. What I don’t understand about this Mexican holiday is why the event doesn’t translate into a better attitude about death in general. It’d be very easy for me to blame Catholicism for this (I’d wager that >90% of Mexicans are Catholic), but even basic Christian values would support a healthier view about death.
Rewind to my Intern year in the ICU. A 55 y/o, obese Mexican guy with hypertension and diabetes comes in with a massive saddle pulmonary embolus (which is a giant blood clot in your lungs). H
e’s hemodynamically unstable so I start thrombolytics. He starts to crash and I call IR to do a thrombectomy at 2am, and they agree that the procedure is indicated. (lucky guy, to get IR out of bed at 2am). Despite all this sweat, the guy dies in the IR suite at 4am. This huge, Mexican family comes to county in the am. The guy’s body sits in the ICU with his wife sobbing her eyes out. As I make rounds with the ICU team, it’s impossible for me to drown out the sound of her wailing. We finish rounds hrs later and the wife is still there, kids at her side, crying as if she just heard for the first time of the man’s passing. Boxes of Kleenex are mounting. She sat there and cried for over 5 hrs, when his obese carcass had to be taken to the hospital morgue.
e’s hemodynamically unstable so I start thrombolytics. He starts to crash and I call IR to do a thrombectomy at 2am, and they agree that the procedure is indicated. (lucky guy, to get IR out of bed at 2am). Despite all this sweat, the guy dies in the IR suite at 4am. This huge, Mexican family comes to county in the am. The guy’s body sits in the ICU with his wife sobbing her eyes out. As I make rounds with the ICU team, it’s impossible for me to drown out the sound of her wailing. We finish rounds hrs later and the wife is still there, kids at her side, crying as if she just heard for the first time of the man’s passing. Boxes of Kleenex are mounting. She sat there and cried for over 5 hrs, when his obese carcass had to be taken to the hospital morgue.As a devout Catholic, you’d think the wife would be happy that her husband is free of Earthly attachments. She should be ecstatic that he no longer has to see a rainy day, a flat tire on his car or pick up a check he can’t afford to pay. He’s chilling with Jesus now, right? But no, she’s obtunded in sorrow. Maybe that means she’s greedy because she’s self-absorbed with her own grief? I don’t know.
From a culture that celebrates the dead and gives them their own holiday, I expect a whole lot more than this Christian bullshit. As a physician death is never too far away. One develops a keen accep
tance and understanding of death. Death becomes like a relative that you see every now and then and sleeps in the guest bedroom. He’ll pop up and you’ll say, “Hey Death, what’s up?” and he’ll be like, “Here’s $10 for your birthday, I’m just gonna take this guy here, ok?” and then you won’t see him again for another few months. I read that in China the elderly receive very little end of life care because they don’t want to be a financial burden to their families. In Europe, hemodialysis is never initiated in anyone over the age of 65 unless one pays out of pocket (I think HD is like $40k/yr). I guess if you’re 66 and go into kidney failure, you just get a shovel and start digging. That or invest heavily in lotto.
Death is normal. There’s this marketing trend to spray the word “natural” all over anything that you’re trying to sell. I can’t think of anything more natural than death. It happens to everyone: we die. But people still have this huge aversion to death, even though no one who’s been through it has ever said anything bad about the experience.
When I die, you can do whatever you want to my body. Dress me up in funny costumes and hats, sodomize me, whatever. Heck, you can make a new hole in me somewhere and sodomize that, I really don’t care. Because I’ll be dead. You won’t hear a complaint come out of this mouth, even if you do try to fuck it. I don’t think I’ll care about anything. While I’m still alive though, I should try to be nicer to people around me and take care of my family and loved ones. That’s what really important, despite how saccharin it sounds. As things are now, I don’t think there will be anyone crying for 5 hrs at my bedside at 4 in the morning.
tance and understanding of death. Death becomes like a relative that you see every now and then and sleeps in the guest bedroom. He’ll pop up and you’ll say, “Hey Death, what’s up?” and he’ll be like, “Here’s $10 for your birthday, I’m just gonna take this guy here, ok?” and then you won’t see him again for another few months. I read that in China the elderly receive very little end of life care because they don’t want to be a financial burden to their families. In Europe, hemodialysis is never initiated in anyone over the age of 65 unless one pays out of pocket (I think HD is like $40k/yr). I guess if you’re 66 and go into kidney failure, you just get a shovel and start digging. That or invest heavily in lotto.Death is normal. There’s this marketing trend to spray the word “natural” all over anything that you’re trying to sell. I can’t think of anything more natural than death. It happens to everyone: we die. But people still have this huge aversion to death, even though no one who’s been through it has ever said anything bad about the experience.
When I die, you can do whatever you want to my body. Dress me up in funny costumes and hats, sodomize me, whatever. Heck, you can make a new hole in me somewhere and sodomize that, I really don’t care. Because I’ll be dead. You won’t hear a complaint come out of this mouth, even if you do try to fuck it. I don’t think I’ll care about anything. While I’m still alive though, I should try to be nicer to people around me and take care of my family and loved ones. That’s what really important, despite how saccharin it sounds. As things are now, I don’t think there will be anyone crying for 5 hrs at my bedside at 4 in the morning.
2 comments:
Someone should give you a 50 gal fleet enema. You are full of shit!
Thanks for the constructive commentary you anonymous dick. I won't delete this comment, because I like the originality of the fleet enema part. Other, more banal comments, will be deleted.
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