Here's a grim and hardly sobering look at how some physicians won't stop their medical care, prolonging the inevitable death and so on. End of life issues, that many nurses like myself had to struggle with every day of our careers.

Still Going Strong / The Afterlife Dance

Eighty-eight
And still going strong,
Ventilated
Three months too long,
All for the sake
Of his surgeons pride,
Who claims that none
Of his patients have died.

On our service
You're always a code,
No matter how long
Or crooked, the road,
If your organs should fail
It's hardly our fault,
You should have laid off
The tobacco and salt.

The poor old guy
Just lies in his bed,
As visions of other days
Dance through his head,
And his fifty year wife
Looks so dazed and worn out,
She can not quite grasp
What this show is about.

The surgeon will tell her
That Fred is ok,
A little bit better
On his ninety-ninth day,
Because rumors were heard
That he breathed once, last hour,
So it wouldn't be proper
To turn off the power.

These almighty doctors
With statistical pride,
Just think about numbers
When people have died,
Because it makes it real tough
When they're applying for grants,
If too many clients
Do the afterlife dance.

Fibril_late; 7/93