My Turn.

Death, it’s everywhere we look. It’s all over the news: Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Billy Mays, etc. Those are just the celebrities. There are countless other deaths that are not plastered all over the news and internet. I’ll admit, I’m a little tired of hearing about all of the celebrity deaths.

My grandma’s uncle is dying from cancer right now.

At the end of June, I received news that K’s (do you remember him?) dad passed away. I don’t really know all the details –I was too afraid to ask when I talked to K the day after it happened.

There’s a guy I work with, and his grandson is dying. It’s one of the most tragic stories I’ve heard. Every time he updates us, I want to cry, and I don’t even know his grandson. The story: He (the grandson) was with his friends smoking weed. He decided to take heroine. He took so much that he passed out. The doctors estimate that he had been unconscious for 48 hours before his friends called 911.

R’s grandson is 20 years old and very bright. He been struggling with a drug addiction for the past eight years and tried to kill himself nine times. Before he shot up on heroine, he’d been dry for six or eight months. When you’re addicted to something, all it takes is one more drink, one more puff, or one more injection, and that’s it. It’s over.

He never regained consciousness, but he did react to pain stimuli –not that that shows any sign of brain activity. The doctors took three days to see if they could get his internal organs working again. Then the parents were faced with a horrifying decision: Whether or not to take their son off life support. A choice between life or death. The doctors stepped in and delivered the ultimatum for them. Their son was taken off life support. If he did miraculous recover and come out of the coma, more than likely he’d be a vegetable for the rest of his life. But the organ and brain damage alone were signs that he wasn’t going to make it out of this alive. The doctors took all the tubes out of him except for the breathing tube. That was to be kept in until all the family could say good bye to him. After that is taken out, he might have about ten days to live.

Everywhere I look someone dies. I wonder when it’s my turn.