GERD, Dying Conversations and Choosing to Live

Reader's Digest's January 2013 edition includes a couple of interesting articles. The first one is to announce a device for drug-free GERD relief. There seems to be a correlation between interstitial lung diseases and GERD. We all seem to have it! “The EndoStim system, powered by a matchbook-size device implanted under the skin in the abdomen, delivers tiny electrical impulses to the sphincter muscle between the esophagus and the stomach. The jolts opens the muscle for swallowing but close it other times to prevent reflux.” It is available right now in Europe and the clinical trials are planned for the US by the end of 2013.

A hospice chaplain wrote the next article. As a young chaplain, she thought her job would be to discuss dying and talks about religion with patients just prior to death. What she discovered was that the conversations were always about families: about their mothers and fathers, sons and daughters.

They talked about love. Many aspects of love. At the moment of death, she found that so many people would reach out a hand and call out to their parents.

I met Michael less than a year after his appendix burst and he almost died. They had burst five days before he saw a doctor as he thought he had the flu. He had gangrene throughout his body and into one leg. He walked out of the hospital at 124 pounds a month later.

But, he really should have died. The only reason he didn’t die was because of his age, or so the doctors told him.

He told me that he remembers being allowed to make the decision of whether he wanted to live or to die. He said he was in a lovely, calm, warm place and he knew that if he chose to live, it was going to be a lot harder than just dying. Somehow when I am anxious about the thought of dying and how I will physically die, I remember what he learned.

Thankfully, he chose to live.

Because of this, he has always felt that the years that followed were “free.” He shouldn’t be here anyway. I think it is why he was able to accomplish so much because he had no fear. And he really has no fear of dying.