Quality of Life

Perhaps a year ago, I wrote about an elderly man who was about to undergo a dangerous operation.  Before the operation, his daughter, a physician, asked him what quality of life would be satisfactory to him if he were unable to speak for himself and the question of resuscitation arose.  As long as he could watch football on television and eat chocolate ice cream, he told her, he’d want to be resuscitated.

That wouldn’t be enough for me, I wrote at the time, even if I made more congenial substitutions for chocolate ice cream and football.  But while I was in the hospital, I changed my mind. It would be enough for me, with the important proviso that I was relatively pain free.  Even in the hospital there was much to be enjoyed – my visitors, the food, the television news, none of which required more than what’s involved in eating ice cream and watching football.  If I could read and write, so much the better, but these activities, so important up to now, would not be a sine qua non. 

There’s nothing like being faced with the alternative of death to make you realize that even a life of limited scope can be worth living.