Life and Death

Life:  "We" had an absolutely wonderful cardiologist appointment yesterday.  Lee's Dr. is the BEST!!  He's very upfront, tells it like it is and is also compassionate....a rare breed.  He told Lee at the get-go that if he wasn't going to follow his "orders", he wasn't going to be his Dr.!  He's encouraged him along these last 3 months and yesterday he was as over the moon with Lee's cholesterol numbers and nearly 3 mos. of no smoking as we were!!  He had asked Lee to work on modifying his diet, take Crestor (even though it had recorded some nasty side affects) and quit smoking.  His bad LDL # was 185  8 weeks ago. The Dr. asked him to try and get that down by half.  "A pretty tall order but give it a try."  Yesterday it was EIGHTY-FIVE.. down 100 points..more than half! Them when asked how the stop smoking venture was going....we explained it will be 3 mos. on the 18th no puffs....cold turkey...and only a week or so of patches.!!  There was hand shaking, alerting the rest of the staff and a festive mood in the office.  It was pretty cool!!! Lee was such a good boy, I took him to Dick's for a prize and out to supper!!!

Death:  Dr. Jack Kevorkian is dead...of natural causes. I am sad. What a remarkable man!  A true Doctor in every sense of the word.  He cared for his patients 100%.  He wasn't of the mind to keep his patients alive for as long as possible regardless of the pain, suffering and consequences.  He was a true healer.  That often means helping to heal the mind by alleviating the suffering.  The judicial system, the over zealous do-gooders, the hypocrites all did their best to squelch him but he continued to do what he knew was right for each individual patient.  I have yet to watch the HBO movie "You Don't Know Jack" that starred Al Pacino as Kevorkian. 
Pacino said during the speech that it was a pleasure to "try to portray someone as brilliant and interesting and unique" as Kevorkian and a "pleasure to know him."
Kevorkian himself said he liked the movie and enjoyed the attention it generated, but told The Associated Press that he doubted it would inspire much action by a new generation of assisted-suicide advocates.
"You'll hear people say, `Well, it's in the news again, it's time for discussing this further.' No it isn't. It's been discussed to death," he said. "There's nothing new to say about it. It's a legitimate, ethical medical practice as it was in ancient Rome and Greece."
I wholeheartedly agree Jack.... we put our animals down to save them from pain and us from unbearably watching. Hopefully someone will grab the reins and continue his journey.. It's worth the trip!