Ethics Class...

Here is a little piece from my ethics class thru GCU. I thought this paper was going to be easy, but turned out to be very thought provoking.

A Partial Statement of Personal Ethics
When I read the questions proposed by this assignment, I initially thought to myself, “Hey this is going to be really easy, and I should be able to churn that paper out in no time at all!” Well the truth is that I have started and stopped this paper several times, unsure exactly; just what the heck I was going to say. Thought provoking and disturbing questions allow me to flex my brain and examine myself. I really wanted to answer them all.

“What is most important in your life?”
My family is the most important thing in my life. I have two daughters, and a wonderful husband, plus numerous loving immediate family members. I am constantly striving to be a good mother and role model to my children. I want my girls to grow up knowing that they are loved and important. I am raising my children for the future. I can only hope to give them the tools they need to become a productive member of society and a good mate to somebody else.
So my family is at the top of the list, and then comes art. I love to draw. I love to make things. It is relaxing and fulfilling and makes me feel complete. I remember a conversation about making one’s avocation into a vocation, and thereby draining it of any fun or creativeness. I have a tendency to believe that to be true. After two years of art school pulling at my psyche and deadlines counting down, I discovered that there was no way for me to do art for a living.
Eventually my interests in biology lead me to nursing. This is my third most important thing in my life. When I can plainly see that people trust me, I feel an obligation to be as honest and as knowledgeable as I can for them. Maybe it’s a motherly instinct? Maybe it is my personality? I just know that I want to be able to impart some of my knowledge to someone else in a truthful, accurate and kind way.

“If you were dying, what would be the most important to you?
I think I wouldn’t want any pain. Play some music that I like in the background, darken the room, light some candles, make sure I am clean and dry. I would like to have all the arrangements for after my death to have been made, written down, so nobody left behind has to do anything, except dress in black and attend a wake. I would like to go out of this world as peaceful as a rainy winter day in the Mojave Desert.

“What if you were in a vegetative state? What if there were chronic, irreversible diseases present?”
Kill me. I come from the veterinary side of medicine, and we treat our furry friends with more dignity and compassion. If our loveable old dog is dying from liver cancer, we wait until they are too ill to enjoy life. Then we give them one little shot and the misery ends. Our grandfathers that are dying from liver cancer get tubes to pee through and handfuls of pills to choke down until he becomes too ill to enjoy life. He lies in bed for days on end, but fortunately signed an agreement that if he were to code, no heroic efforts will be made to sustain his painful, nauseated, confused life. Thank god for hospice care.

“How do your religious beliefs affect your thoughts/ feelings about illness/ death?”
I am not religious, but spiritual. I don’t know if our souls or consciousness ever resurfaces into someone else. I don’t know if there is a Heaven or a Hell, or a Nirvana, or Valhalla, or Kingdom. I don’t know any gods, so I rely on my own senses; things I can see, touch, smell, taste, in the here and now. I am a slow processor and am constantly seeking clarity. At night I cathartically dream or meditate to cleanse my being. I have seen ghosts, I have felt gooseflesh pop out after pronouncing someone dead in the ER. A mere glance is all it takes to see if the code that the medics bring in is alive or dead. I feel loss with the families, and have to turn my head away so as not to let them see my tears reflected in their shining eyes.
An illness/ death is purely biological, the pain and suffering is purely human. As my role, I wish to make the suffering less.