At the moment, for 66, I look pretty good. I\u2019ve lost 20 pounds. My face is thinner….[but for the disease I have] there is no meaningful treatment. No cure. There is one medication, Rilutek, which might make a few months\u2019 difference. It retails for about $14,000 a year. That doesn\u2019t seem worthwhile to me. If I let this run the whole course, with all the human, medical, technological and loving support I will start to need just months from now, it will leave me, in 5 or 8 or 12 or more years, a conscious but motionless, mute, withered, incontinent mummy of my former self. Maintained by feeding and waste tubes, breathing and suctioning machines.<\/p>\n
No, thank you. I hate being a drag. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll stick around for the back half of Lou.<\/p>\n
I think it\u2019s important to say that. We obsess in this country about how to eat and dress and drink, about finding a job and a mate. About having sex and children. About how to live. But we don\u2019t talk about how to die….<\/p>\n