Jen Yokoyama
Health-Care Decisions

     People, if they are lucky, get to a point in their lives where they have to fill out a health-care directive stating their decisions regarding what actions to take as they are nearing death.  There are a lot of options to consider checking off on the form, but when it comes down it it, everyone is just taking a different path to the same inevitable "end of the road".

     The section of the health-care directive that really stuck out to me was Part 2 (Instructions for Health Care), especially the part where the form asks the person of interest if they want to prolong or not prolong their life.  Personally, I would choose not to prolong my life, even if it causes me great pain and discomfort towards the end.  Nature has a way of telling living things that their time is up and letting them know that it is time to pass on.  If this applies to all life on Earth, it should apply to me as well.  I do not want to be hooked up to countless machines that are feeding me through an IV and helping me breathe.  At that point, I'm not myself anymore.  I can't do anything on my own and there isn't anything to enjoy in life if I get to that stage.  I would be there physically but not mentally, a living corpse just waiting for my body to catch up with my mind.

     This is a question that will pop up in everyone's lives in some way or form, and it is good that we are prompted to think about this at a younger age.  Death is unavoidable and it is the one constant in everyone's lives, as morbid as that sounds.  This health-care directive is just a way to help us prepare for that.