Neuro Note #2 ALS
Neuro Note #2- Morrie Schwartz: Lessons on Living (ALS)
For the purpose of this blog post I am splitting up paragraphs by the 3 separate interviews that took place, as each saw an increase version of the deterioration that ALS causes in the body.
Interview 1
Morrie Schwartz is famously known from the book Tuesdays with Morrie. He was a popular sociology professor at Brandice who had ALS or Lou Gehrigs disease. For this particular blog post, I went to a different source material to write about Morrie. I watched a series of interviews with reporter Ted Koppel called Lessons on Living with Morrie Schwartz. By the time this interview was released, Morrie had passed away. Morrie has a lot of feelings about his ALS diagnosis, he feels anger and grief for the life he had, but wants to live out the rest of his life as much as he can. Morrie says this is the time to do a life review, to make amends, and come to terms with life relationships. Morrie has an interesting outlook on death, he is sad about it, but feels like it is something we should address more. Morrie recently came to the conclusion that there is not a big difference between life and death. Morrie is informed that he may need to eventually be put on a ventilator if he goes into respiratory failure, and is very focused on the quality of life while being on a ventilator. He wishes to be able to always remain able to talk and communicate in a lively manner. Morrie is no longer able to walk and uses a wheelchair, he mentions that his hands are next to go. He is concerned with growing more and more dependent. Koppel then mentions, how his active mind is going to become a prisoner of his inactive body. Morrie says that this does not scare him right now, but he needs to make the decision of when enough is enough for the sake of his friends and family. He says that once his quality of life is destroyed to such a degree, he does not wish to go on. He does not want to live a life where he is not who he is, relating to people with affect and expression. His overall goal was to not give up on his life. He wishes to go with dignity, courage, and humor. A noble goal in my opinion. He plans on staying at home until he dies, no hospital, no nursing home, or anywhere else.
Interview 2
Morrie is now on the downhill. His swallowing his getting worse, it's taking him longer to get down food, and his voice is slurring. He is also losing the ability to feed himself. If his table is too low, he cannot lift his arm up from the table all the way. His doctors do not know how much longer he has due to the unpredictable nature of ALS. Morrie believes he has 3-6 months. He says emotionally he currently feels very high. This is due to the relationships he is engaging in with his loved ones everyday. He then says his emotions switch to dread when he becomes more aware of his worsening voice, swallowing, and hands. He is sad about these impending losses. He says "I am a Jewish man, I use my hands." He then expresses his concerns over not being able to communicate what he wants to communicate. He sees it as terrible and knows he will be depressed for a while, but hopes to take advantage of the silence to soak in more of his spirituality. In terms of his death, Morrie has decided to ultimatly say no to a ventilator as there is, in his opinion no quality of life in the use of one.
Interview 3
At this point, Morrie's voice is nearly gone, this will be his final interview with Koppel. He talks about how the outside world is an imagined world at this point, resulting in a lot of introspection on his part. Morrie had doubts about this last interview. He is terribly fatigued and barely has any energy at all alongside a number of coughing spells. He says mucus is settling in his chest and took his PT hours to get unsettled. He was nervous about doing the interview out of fear of being a spectacle but decided that it would be deceiving to not show this part of his ALS. He now says he is less afraid of death as this level of suffering is starting to become unbearable. He then says, "don't give up too soon, but don't stay around too long. He says out of all the things in the world he is letting go of, the relationships with his loved ones is the hardest thing. He has so many people that are wanting to see him, but he does not have the energy to see all of them. He says intrinsic to his being, is the capacity to respond, and now that he is losing that capacity he does not want to see everyone as he is not himself. Koppel then requests Morrie to demonstrate the nature of ALS by trying to put his glasses on that are hanging around his neck. Morrie cannot put them on. Morrie cannot feed himself, toilet, dress, or perform the majority of his ADLs. He says he cannot even sit on the toilet by himself due to the deterioration of his trunk muscles. He says that he has not lost his dignity as he is a human, and things like this happen to humans, but he is ready to die with serenity. In his last thoughts with Koppel, he shows gratefullness for being able to get out this message and to love each other.
My Takeaways:
I admire Morrie's ability to look at his impending death in the face so bravely. I also admire his outlook on life and how he wishes to use his condition to attract awareness to what ALS does to the human body. He menitoned a lot about how he does not want to lose his quality of life and I think that really goes alongside what we as OT's would do with a client with ALS. I hope Morrie had a good OT dedicated to perserving his need for a quality of life to their best ability. I think this interview provided a very a good insight on ALS and a lot of the facets of the condition and would recommend anyone who wished to learn more about it to watch this video or read the book Tuesday's with Morrie.
References:
Wedge, J. (2015, September 16). Retrieved August 09, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtYyT6Hl3ms
Image: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p2iJmNYJaU
For the purpose of this blog post I am splitting up paragraphs by the 3 separate interviews that took place, as each saw an increase version of the deterioration that ALS causes in the body.
Interview 1
Morrie Schwartz is famously known from the book Tuesdays with Morrie. He was a popular sociology professor at Brandice who had ALS or Lou Gehrigs disease. For this particular blog post, I went to a different source material to write about Morrie. I watched a series of interviews with reporter Ted Koppel called Lessons on Living with Morrie Schwartz. By the time this interview was released, Morrie had passed away. Morrie has a lot of feelings about his ALS diagnosis, he feels anger and grief for the life he had, but wants to live out the rest of his life as much as he can. Morrie says this is the time to do a life review, to make amends, and come to terms with life relationships. Morrie has an interesting outlook on death, he is sad about it, but feels like it is something we should address more. Morrie recently came to the conclusion that there is not a big difference between life and death. Morrie is informed that he may need to eventually be put on a ventilator if he goes into respiratory failure, and is very focused on the quality of life while being on a ventilator. He wishes to be able to always remain able to talk and communicate in a lively manner. Morrie is no longer able to walk and uses a wheelchair, he mentions that his hands are next to go. He is concerned with growing more and more dependent. Koppel then mentions, how his active mind is going to become a prisoner of his inactive body. Morrie says that this does not scare him right now, but he needs to make the decision of when enough is enough for the sake of his friends and family. He says that once his quality of life is destroyed to such a degree, he does not wish to go on. He does not want to live a life where he is not who he is, relating to people with affect and expression. His overall goal was to not give up on his life. He wishes to go with dignity, courage, and humor. A noble goal in my opinion. He plans on staying at home until he dies, no hospital, no nursing home, or anywhere else.
Interview 2
Morrie is now on the downhill. His swallowing his getting worse, it's taking him longer to get down food, and his voice is slurring. He is also losing the ability to feed himself. If his table is too low, he cannot lift his arm up from the table all the way. His doctors do not know how much longer he has due to the unpredictable nature of ALS. Morrie believes he has 3-6 months. He says emotionally he currently feels very high. This is due to the relationships he is engaging in with his loved ones everyday. He then says his emotions switch to dread when he becomes more aware of his worsening voice, swallowing, and hands. He is sad about these impending losses. He says "I am a Jewish man, I use my hands." He then expresses his concerns over not being able to communicate what he wants to communicate. He sees it as terrible and knows he will be depressed for a while, but hopes to take advantage of the silence to soak in more of his spirituality. In terms of his death, Morrie has decided to ultimatly say no to a ventilator as there is, in his opinion no quality of life in the use of one.
Interview 3
At this point, Morrie's voice is nearly gone, this will be his final interview with Koppel. He talks about how the outside world is an imagined world at this point, resulting in a lot of introspection on his part. Morrie had doubts about this last interview. He is terribly fatigued and barely has any energy at all alongside a number of coughing spells. He says mucus is settling in his chest and took his PT hours to get unsettled. He was nervous about doing the interview out of fear of being a spectacle but decided that it would be deceiving to not show this part of his ALS. He now says he is less afraid of death as this level of suffering is starting to become unbearable. He then says, "don't give up too soon, but don't stay around too long. He says out of all the things in the world he is letting go of, the relationships with his loved ones is the hardest thing. He has so many people that are wanting to see him, but he does not have the energy to see all of them. He says intrinsic to his being, is the capacity to respond, and now that he is losing that capacity he does not want to see everyone as he is not himself. Koppel then requests Morrie to demonstrate the nature of ALS by trying to put his glasses on that are hanging around his neck. Morrie cannot put them on. Morrie cannot feed himself, toilet, dress, or perform the majority of his ADLs. He says he cannot even sit on the toilet by himself due to the deterioration of his trunk muscles. He says that he has not lost his dignity as he is a human, and things like this happen to humans, but he is ready to die with serenity. In his last thoughts with Koppel, he shows gratefullness for being able to get out this message and to love each other.
My Takeaways:
I admire Morrie's ability to look at his impending death in the face so bravely. I also admire his outlook on life and how he wishes to use his condition to attract awareness to what ALS does to the human body. He menitoned a lot about how he does not want to lose his quality of life and I think that really goes alongside what we as OT's would do with a client with ALS. I hope Morrie had a good OT dedicated to perserving his need for a quality of life to their best ability. I think this interview provided a very a good insight on ALS and a lot of the facets of the condition and would recommend anyone who wished to learn more about it to watch this video or read the book Tuesday's with Morrie.
References:
Wedge, J. (2015, September 16). Retrieved August 09, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtYyT6Hl3ms
Image: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p2iJmNYJaU
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