{"id":1464,"date":"2017-03-26T05:00:20","date_gmt":"2017-03-26T09:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sjcmetheology.wpengine.com\/?p=1464"},"modified":"2017-03-26T05:00:20","modified_gmt":"2017-03-26T09:00:20","slug":"a-second-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/a-second-chance\/","title":{"rendered":"A Second Chance"},"content":{"rendered":"

We continue our series on the Mystery of Death<\/strong> reflecting on the physical and spiritual care of persons as they near the end of life.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thanks, God, for letting me do it right\u2026this time.<\/p>\n

In August, 1973, my family returned from Puerto Rico to my home in Wisconsin.\u00a0 My parents took high school students there during that summer to learn about the culture and language.\u00a0 I was thirteen then; my sister was almost sixteen.\u00a0 My parents and sister were linguists and absorbed themselves in the culture and Spanish.\u00a0 All I wanted to do, though, was play basketball\u2026<\/p>\n

Life in Wisconsin returned to normal with school fast approaching, except for one anomaly\u2014my father\u2019s skin and eyes turned yellow.\u00a0 He was diagnosed with hepatitis. Later, his health care providers correctly diagnosed him with pancreatic cancer and he underwent chemotherapy in the fall.\u00a0 He lost his hair and quite a bit of weight. He would get bruised and cut from falling, and lose control of his bowels.\u00a0 As an eighth grader concerned\u2014to a fault\u2014with image among my peers, I resented my father\u2019s appearance and frailty.\u00a0 I treated him unkindly during his time of greatest need.\u00a0 Instead of being compassionate after he got \u201ccut up\u201d following a fall, I was mean-spirited.<\/p>\n

My father was in and out of the hospital.\u00a0 Even though I was a scrawny little runt in eighth grade, I still played football.\u00a0 Once, visiting my father in the hospital, he asked me if he could see my next game.\u00a0 I said, \u201csure!\u201d\u00a0 He asked me where to go and where exactly to sit.\u00a0 I told him where the game was being held and exactly where to sit\u2014far away from where anyone would identify him as my dad!<\/p>\n

I do not think my image problem could be reduced simply to diminished or nullified culpability because of the early adolescent \u201cstage\u201d through which I was developing along with its accompanying insecurities.\u00a0 Sure, maybe that was a part of it, but my pride and unkindness were tangibly real.<\/p>\n

The last time my father was in the hospital, he was seemingly unconscious.\u00a0 In tears, I apologized to him for my shameful, despicable behavior.\u00a0 Did he hear me?\u00a0 Sometimes hearing is the last sense to go.\u00a0 I will never know, at least in this life.\u00a0 Shortly after, he died.\u00a0 I failed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Fast forward: in August of 2008, I moved my mother, residing in Beaver Dam, WI, into an assisted living center in the same city because of her immobility and rapidly declining health.\u00a0 As a widow, she lived in the same home in which she and my father reared me starting when I was a five-year-old.\u00a0 My mother was a professional pianist and instructor whose social and professional connections extended well beyond Wisconsin.\u00a0 Though my wife, children, and I resided in La Crosse, Wisconsin\u2014almost a three-hour drive from my mother\u2014Beaver Dam was her home.<\/p>\n

The moving transition was strange, difficult, and necessary.\u00a0 Her little assisted living apartment\u2014with piano\u2014was actually quite elegant.\u00a0 My mother\u2019s time there was limited, though.\u00a0 Her heart was weak, and she suffered from circulatory problems.\u00a0 She was, in general, weaker than she should have been. (My wife and I think this could have been due in part to an undiagnosed chronic Vitamin D deficiency.)<\/p>\n

Then, in late October, she was taken to emergency care to treat pneumonia.\u00a0 She stayed in the hospital, and was taken to a nursing home to recover.\u00a0 She had a series of setbacks, and never returned to assisted living.\u00a0 Her circulatory and respiratory systems further deteriorated, though she remained lucid.\u00a0 Her health care team asked her if she wanted to be designated \u201cfull code\u201d\u2014to resuscitate her if she had a respiratory or cardiac arrest\u2014or \u201cDNR,\u201d meaning “do not resuscitate.\u201d\u00a0 She could not decide, and left it to me. (My only sibling, Julianne, died in 2002.)\u00a0 I became her power of attorney.<\/p>\n

To discern correctly, I consulted the Church\u2019s teaching on the matter and prayed\u2026and prayed. \u00a0I knew that a full code procedure in my mother\u2019s case would be very invasive, painful, and even crushing, literally, i.e., chest compressions could break her ribs.\u00a0 In consequence of a full code, she would be sedated, unconscious, and dysfunctional with no prospect of improving a seriously declining condition.\u00a0 Conversely, my mother would soon die in consequence of an arrest accompanied by a DNR designation.\u00a0 Among other sources, I consulted the Catechism of the Catholic Church: \u201cDiscontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of \u2018over-zealous\u2019 treatment.\u00a0 Here one does not will to cause death; one\u2019s inability to impede it is merely accepted\u201d (2278).<\/p>\n

I discerned that the DNR designation was the correct (though very difficult) choice.\u00a0 With double pneumonia and accelerating weakness with difficulty breathing, she was taken out of the hospital two more times during Christmas week and placed in a nursing home where my family could visit her more easily. Then, a few days into the new year, she slipped into a dying phase.\u00a0 The staff noninvasively applied an oxygen mask to support my mother\u2019s breathing.\u00a0 Their action throughout impressed me and corresponded to Church teaching, e.g., the Catechism, 2279, states \u201cEven if death is thought imminent, the ordinary care owed to a sick person cannot be legitimately interrupted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of my wife\u2019s support and care for our children, I was able to spend significant time with my mother during the last month of her life.\u00a0 This included the last few days and nights on a cot at her side, watching and helping my mother die with courage and grace.\u00a0 These were among the most profound and memorable moments of my life.\u00a0 I also am grateful my family could play music at her funeral, and I could give the eulogy.\u00a0 I thank God for this amazing, grace-filled, moving opportunity to show my gratitude and love as a son\u2026and for giving me a second chance.\u00a0 \u201cI thank you, Lord, with all my heart\u2026Your love endures forever!\u201d (Psalm 138:1, 8)<\/p>\n

Mark Koehne<\/strong> teaches moral theology for Saint Joseph’s College Online Theology. Programs<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We continue our series on the Mystery of Death reflecting on the physical and spiritual care of persons as they near the end of life.   Thanks, God, for letting me do it right\u2026this time. In August, 1973, my family … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,15,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-pastoral-theology","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}