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Friday, March 25, 2005
BELIEVING IN A 'CULTURE OF LIFE' I WOULD FIGHT AGAIN TO KEEP MY WIFE ALIVE
By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA (ANS) -- Whatever has become of the American mantra, "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness?"
I ask this question with incredulity at the position certain judges in the American legal system are taking with regard to the Terri Schiavo case.
As many of you know, my wife Una recently experienced a cardiac arrest while sitting watching television at home. On transfer to the emergency room of a local hospital she had a heart attack. Two weeks later she had another cardiac arrest while in intensive care. (Pictured: The Michael Ireland Family. Michael's wife Una suffered a heart attack and two cardiac arrests and was on life support and near death on several occasions in the last few months of 2004).Doctors told my pastor to prepare me to lose my wife and the mother of our two teenage children. On another occasion they told him to start helping me move toward "end-of-life" decisions.
Una and I had just recently discussed this matter a few weeks earlier while driving in the car. It was not a seriously in-depth conversation, and I don't remember how or why we had that discussion. It was brief, and to the point.
Una told me that she didn't want "extraordinary measures" to be taken if she was near death.
That left me with the problem of how to define "extraordinary measures."
My pastor thought that if Una was required to undergo kidney dialysis, that could be considered "extraordinary." One of the doctors, however, said she would not classify it that way.
Una has been trying to get me to read Joni Eareckson Tada's book, "When Is It Right To Die?" I didn't get around to it before her recent critical illness. However, Una had told me in the past, the premise of the book was that "When that time comes, I would know what was right."
My wife was put into a medically-induced coma and on a respirator and given paralyzing medicine to keep her still. She had IV's, tubes, and monitors for everything from blood pressure to blood gas oxygenation levels.
I was told that her condition was critical and that everything was "moment by moment." She was near death on several occasions. I am thankful that medical staff told me: "We haven't given up on her. We still have other things we can try."
They did tell me they were trying many things they would not consider doing if she were twice her age. One doctor told me he instructed the nurses to "Pull out all the stops," for my wife.
No one is able to tell me if what happened to my wife will or will not happen again.
Una and Terri Schiavo are close to each other in age, both in their forties.
While I believed that Una was too young to die, I had to face the possibility. The doctors were honest with me about my wife's condition, but did say they had seen others in worse condition eventually make a full recovery and leave the hospital. It could take weeks or months for her to recover. I prayed for that to happen, while bracing myself for the worst.
At one point, while Una was in the coma, I thought she was trying to tell me to let her go. Another time, I thought she was mad at me for not letting her go. I may have just been imagining things. My pastor said, "What, your wife is in the hospital and she's not allowed to be mad at you!" He did say, however, that he thought Una at that time was not really in any fit condition to make that decision for herself.
Therein lies a key.
I've known my wife for more than 20 years. Even though she said that she didn't want extraordinary measures taken to revive her, I know my wife. I know that she loves life. She loves me and loves our children. She enjoys her friends, loves working in the nursery at church. She has worked with severely handicapped children. She has coped with a heart condition since she was young. She will always have heart problems.
I know my wife believes in Life after Death. I know she longs for the new body she will receive in Eternity. But I do not believe that she was ready to die, or that it was her time to pass on from this earth.
As a Christian myself, I was hanging on to every vestige, every sign of impending recovery, every indication of a turnaround in my wife's condition while she fought pneumonia, Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome, lung collapse, infection, fever, blood loss, you name it.
I found myself in between a rock and a hard place. The Lord placed me "in the cleft of a rock." I told Jesus that I would accept my wife back better or the same as before, in a worse condition, or not at all. I stayed in that place until Una came out of the coma on Christmas Day, 2004.
Jesus said: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior." (Isaiah 43: 1-3). His word is true.
Although I was only "called to the edge," and did not have to make those end-of-life decisions, I do not yet know what decision I would have made about taking my wife off life support. But I do believe that I would have "fought like the dickens" to preserve my wife's life.
I have often told her that I would "go to the ends of the Earth" for her, that if she needed a kidney or my liver, she could have them. I meant what I said when I committed myself to her "for richer for poorer, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health."
I would do this because I believe that when I asked her to marry me I seriously considered whether she was the one Jesus would call me to lay my life down for, as He laid down His life for the Church.
After thoughtful deliberation, I decided that I couldn't marry her unless I was prepared to do that for her. I would not be able to do anything less.
As the Scripture says: "No greater love is there than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
| ** Michael Ireland is an international British freelance journalist. A former reporter with a London newspaper, Michael is the Chief Correspondent for ASSIST News Service of Garden Grove, CA. Michael immigrated to the United States in 1982 and became a US citizen in Sept., 1995. He is married with two children. Michael has also been a frequent contributor to UCB Europe, a British Christian radio station. |