It is Well with My Soul
“There is almost always a long tail of possibility, however thin. What’s wrong with looking for it? Nothing, it seems to me, unless it means we have failed to prepare for the outcome that’s vastly more probable. The trouble is that we’ve built our medical system and culture around the long tail. We’ve created a multi-trillion dollar edifice for dispensing the equivalent of lottery tickets – and have only the rudiments of a system to prepare patients for the near certainty that those tickets will not win. Hope is not a plan, but hope is our plan.”
Atul Gawande, MD
Being Mortal
We’re all gonna’ die. No matter if we eat kale three times a day, work out with a personal trainer and somehow achieve a sense of tranquility with our world, we’re all gonna’ die. It’s only when and how that are unknowable now. For a few of us, it will be quickly – a car accident or a massive heart attack. For many of us, it will be as the result of a lingering disease, like cancer, or the gradual breaking down of organs and tissues and systems. In other words, it will be a death seen coming, taking time, with some symptoms treatable, but costing us quality of a life not much extended. The conclusion will be inevitable. (more…)