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I Don't Know What to Call This

'Matt, you'll be killed.'
'I've been prepared for death ever since the death of my crew.'

'There is a simple solution, Anjin-san. Die. Insult Lord Yabu and this very day you will be in heaven or hell.'

'It should have been enough to know that you let us all down'

There is an odd consequence of transplant. Suicide rates among tranplant patients are nearly double national age and sex adjusted rates. I understand this. I feel like I should not, but I do.

I have felt prepared for death ever since the death of my father 43 years ago. Suicide was not a foreign idea when I was growing up. One of my mother's uncles, blind and ill, walked out from his front door and walked until he was struck and killed by a bus. My father's grandmother starved herself to death. My mother used to say we would be better off if she was dead, and often said she wished she was. My father sat us down before beginning the road of home dialysis to ask us if we wanted him to live. There is nothing intrinsically foreign to me about death, or about suicide.

Transplant creates life when there would have been none. Tom Lehrer said it was sobering to think that when Mozart was his age he had been dead 5 years. Well, I would have died a couple of years ago without transplant, and had a serious discussion over a couple of months with my wife and a couple of friends about whether transplant was worth doing when I had already lived 51 years.

I never expected to reach the age I am, let alone 60. I have no concept of being old, and no wish to be in a nursing home, assisted living or anything other than compeltely independent. Also, I need what is called in some cultures a reason to get up in the morning. Something meaningful to do. And I do poorly with conflict.

I am glad my family are finally here in Chattanooga. It is quite stressful for them, however. No one really wants to be here except me. They are not eager or excited to start the day, to find new things, to sort through packing boxes and edit a life. I am quite aware that my choices are the source of their pain. If I had not had a transplant none of this would be happening. If I had not wanted to do something I felt meaningful with my life none of this would be happening. I do not question for a moment they would all rather be in Farragut, because they have all said so.

I take my immunosuppressives every day, and every day I think that all I have to do is stop taking them, and I will die. We all die. Like the Samurai, it is how we live and how we die that is of meaning, not the mere preservation of life.

Given my upbringing and experience, it is so easy to imagine death when I know I have disappointed those who rely upon me, especially when I can not see a way to ease their pain, when I know that my choices and my values have hurt them.

I am sorry for what I have done.

Maybe I will take this post down. I don't know. My blog is about my feelings and values. And this is how I feel and, to one extent or another, it is how I have always felt.

TT

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