Speed of the bullet

Wednesday, 24 September 2008 21:19

In the hot summer days sometimes we need to attend to tasks that are not what we envision lazy summer days being about. Last week I attended the funeral of a friend who decided he needed to check himself out of the game of life.  His decision took nearly everyone by complete and utter surprise. He had been separated for nearly a year and his divorce was imminent. His wife and children had learned to live without him in their life except for the occasional visit on week-ends. It’s a little bit different now - he won’t be visiting anymore - period. As I stood and talked to the widow with a friend of hers the conversation came about that some of his friends weren’t going to attend because they didn’t believe that taking yourself out of the game was an acceptable response. Can we take a minute to take a look at that kind of thinking? My friend was being treated for depression for a period of time. He was under prescribed pharmaceuticals. What is depression but a disease of the mind? Nothing more – nothing less – A DISEASE – a mental illness. There is no one left behind who can measure the depths of his agony. And it must be agony to believe your only alternative is to take yourself out of the game. How deeply is your heart and soul torn to consider pulling yourself before the bottom of the ninth? Those who clothe themselves in sanctimonious disapproval and withhold their support for those left behind (and a funeral is for those left behind not for those who are gone) should consider carefully how impervious is their mental armour and whether they have an Achilles Heel that would bring them down. As mentioned, my friend was on prescribed medications. Pharmaceuticals – an all too common solution to all of life’s ills anymore and in our harried Medicare world, too easily available. Who knows what side effects his prescription caused – and in a very real sense it could have been the hand of the prescription that took my friends life – not his own. I am not sure what prescription he was on but I have another friend who was taking the prescribed stop smoking medicine – Champix. He came by for a visit with his wife and stated that he felt like hell but just thought he should get outside for a bit (we were sitting around the backyard fire). He told me about the side effects he was experiencing – nausea, diarrhea, dizziness, and headaches. I asked him if he had at least quit smoking if he was suffering that much.  He had not. His wife and I convinced him that night that it was better to smoke without the medicine than too suffer all the side effects with no quitting benefit. He threw the pills away when he got home that night. Google Champix on the web and the following side effects are listed vomiting and nausea, headaches, sleep disturbances and atypical dreams, gas (wind), changes in the way food tastes (Dysgeusia), constipation, and suicidal thoughts. A little while later this same trying to quit smoking friend was diagnosed with Parkinsons and was prescribed medicine that list “three” pages of possible devastating side effects. What kind of healing is that? What the hell are they giving to us? The bastards are poisoning us in the name of our own good.  My Dad was prescribed warfarin in his later years to keep his blood thin. Warfarin is a colorless crystalline RAT poison and anticoagulant. What the hell do you suppose happens after taking years of rat poison – you die – just like my old man did. So back to the point of my friend who left the game last week; who knows what side effects he was experiencing from his anti-depression medicine. Other friends of his said he had been golfing the night before – laughing and having a good time (to all appearances). What valley of suicidal depression did he fall into with-in twenty-four hours? One so deep that he could perceive no way out except the one he took. Who can stand and cast the first stone against a man suffering from an illness which impacts over 20% of the population directly or indirectly. As illustrated the cure easily could have been much worse than the disease. And my friend suffered a disease from which no one should have to suffer shame. Is there shame in cancer? Is there shame in Parkinsons? For the family or the patient? Why is mental illness discussed in hushed tones and veiled innuendo? Those suffering from mental disease need our compassion, or support, and our love just as every other sufferer needs. Compassion is without judgment.  And how many of those that stayed away from my friends funeral that day make lifestyle choices that are surely as suicidal as those of my friend? How many were smokers? How many were drinkers? How many carried on a lifestyle that abbreviates their life expectancy? Or perhaps it’s not them, but their friends. How many people will they leave behind too soon because they couldn’t quit smoking? Is there anyone in the civilized world that does not know of the 400 or more poisons that are ingested with every cigarette? In 69 years of tracking (1930-1999): 71,000,000 (That’s seventy one million) tobacco-related deaths in developed countries. (US, Europe, USSR, Canada, Japan, Australia, NZ) – who can refute the evidence of this deadly and lethal poison?  And yet those deaths do not carry the stigma of my friend’s death who could not find his way out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Does anyone say “I’m not going to his funeral – he was a smoker’.” Instead of castigating, instead of moral superiority, instead of disapproval, lets lend a shoulder and an ear for the weary travelers left behind. Lets remember that a funeral does nothing for those who have passed on and is all for those left behind. The wives or husbands, the children, the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and friends. They need our support, they need our compassion, they need our love. It is too late for those who have left – let’s not be so shortsighted with those still lingering. And remember for those that chose death as surely as my friend did that day (whether from smoking, drinking or other lifestyle choices) - metaphorically the only difference is the speed of the bullet. Barry – travel in peace my friend.