Picking a Suicide Date or how Chewy saved my life.
An excerpt From CHEWY: A DOCTOR'S TAIL
There is a season for everything and a natural order to things. Spring is for birth, and the last
days of autumn are for a fall. But living life is also a matter of choice. I and nature are having a conversation where our voices are heard and understood by each other, so a compromise is reached. How many of my good friends and patients had extended their lives, way beyond their due date to complete an important task. Through sheer will or some trick of the body-energy they kept death waiting at the door till a grandson was born, or a daughter graduated from college.
Everyone seems to have a mysterious psychological date on their internal calendar. I certainly did.
I wished to reconcile my life with my daughter, as well a few friends, and certainly my sister.
Really, I had lost everyone else. And now, I was losing my mind. The task then became to do the exit plan before more dementia took hold, and I was unable to pick my poison, so to speak.
Alzheimer’s and related dementias turned the intelligentsia into the un-intelligentsia. But, I
refused to go the way of my father.
What was I up against? I needed to know exactly as to when each element of the disease would shorten my time. I could hear the tick-tock of an oppressive internal body-clock that was slowing down, in accordance to my neural-humoral transmitters. These lovely chemicals would sell on street corners very well. Dopamine gives you the cocaine feeling of exhilaration. Serotonin gave me a happy feeling of ecstasy, and reduced my pain levels. If I took too much, it put me in a Buddha like state of ecstasy. Epinephrine gave me superhuman powers of strength and
concentration, enough to catch a bullet in my teeth. Testosterone made me feel youthful,
energetic and physically strong.
I certainly had an Acetylcholine problem. Acetylcholine has a variety of effects as
a neuromodulator upon brain plasticity, arousal and reward. It has an important role in the
enhancement of sensory perceptions when we wake up, and in sustaining attention. Damage to the cholinergic (acetylcholine-producing) system in the brain has been shown to be plausibly associated with the memory deficits related with Alzheimer’s disease. Recently, it has also been suggested that acetylcholine disruption may be a primary cause of depression.
The blow to my head knocked out my pituitary - thalamic-hypothalamic access and in doing so,the brain was unable to control and regulate the molecules that controlled and regulated me. Subsequently, exhaustion, pain, and dementia was a co-conspirator in my suicide just as much as my bones, which ached, grinding into each other. Thinking hurt, as every thought became increasingly difficult. I no longer had that internal-spring in my fascia and muscles, as my pediatric patients had. In my clinic they would simultaneously run, shout, and flail arms, all while buzzing about the exam room being all smiles with atomic energy. And, even in my lessoned-state, there was nothing more profoundly energizing than watching children be themselves.
I knew there was an absolute end date to my life. Even if all went well. Mitochondria spindles
exist in my body’s cells, they tug DNA to each side of the cell during cell division. That is how
we renew ourselves: one cell becomes two. After each cell division the spindles, which are like little ropes, become smaller. When they become too small to function properly, no more cells canbe made. Theoretically, that becomes our termination date. This perfectly explains Darwin’ssystem that we’re here to pass on our genes. But it’s a sparse explanation for our existence. Mostof us go because we can’t put down the fork, needle, bottle, or some other instrument of bad behavior. However, my specific date would be set by my internal clock running down.
Tick-tock,
tick-tock.
I was rusting.
And all this realization, for me was like a confession. The suicide option was hidden, in my
occiput (back of the skull) brooding, and slowly crept forward towards my tongue, so it could
announce itself. Then it would move to my eyes to image itself. The suicide option gave me that niggling feeling I had as a younger man before the sacrament of confession. The sacrament was an examination of conscience. If done properly, it connected me with my dark side. All the potential for destruction was illuminated. It was a difficult fishing expedition into the sea of the subconscious. The most difficult sins floated around in the imagination, not wanting to be caught, and I did not want to catch them.
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