I was watching Venom E.R. (a show documenting the goings on of the Venom E.R. at Loma Linda University Medical Center) and it was definitely an interesting episode. A guy was bitten by a rattlesnake on his lunch break and fought for his life for three days before ending up in a coma and having to be taken off life support by his family. It was an interesting episode for me on a pastoral, ethical, and practical level.

Pastoral
When this guy’s health started taking a nose dive and they showed the ICU/Dr. Sean Bush calling about lab results that showed kidney failure/life support machines, I was transported back to June of last year when I saw the life-ending process from start to finish. (Read from June 15th to the 30th.) It was interesting to see Dr. Bush talking about the situation after the patient died because you could see just how much shock he was in. He’s treated hundreds of bites and all of them had walked out of the E.R. The guy’s wife (who is a nurse) talked at the end about how it was good that her husband and she had talked about the life support issue as well as talking to their kids about death. It made the decision an easier one and it respected her husband’s wishes.

In the circumstances I dealt with last June, the patient had suffered a heart attack before going into open heart surgery and ended up suffering multiple strokes as well as another heart attack after surgery. His brain was damaged to the point that he wouldn’t have been able to see, walk, or talk in addition to his heart being damaged. It begged the question of what kind of life he would have had and they did eventually have to take him off of life support. Pastorally, we had to help them to understand that this was OK, that it wasn’t murder, and that it was God’s will. We had prayed for him to live, and then we had to pray for him to die. Reconciling that was an interesting process.

Ethical
One of the things Dr. Bush touched on was the fact that they had given this guy state-of-the-art treatment. He had received 48 vials of anti-venom (the normal person only needs about 12) and they had done everything they could for him. It reminded me of some of the issues I struggle with in terms of technology and life support. We may have the technology, but should we use it? We *can* do some things to prolong life, but should we?

Practical
The guy’s wife was talking about the dangers people face when they live on the edge of the desert and how you have to be aware of your surroundings and the creatures in it. As I’m reading reports from home on the coyote problem, this is ringing true for me. I grew up in Almaden Valley (part of San Jose) and I used to go hiking in Quicksilver where we *did* see coyotes and rattlesnakes and bobcats. (I’ve actually walked about 1.5 miles behind a bobcat without it caring all that much.) I KNOW better than to go stamping in brush and I KNOW to watch the trail and to listen. I also respect that the wilds are the homes of these animals and if I go up into them, I’ll likely encounter them. This is why I’m really not having a whole lot of sympathy for those who live on the edge of the wilds and are complaining about the coyotes. I’m pretty irritated with the idiots who are building their houses farther and farther up into the hills because it’s displacing the deer and causing the coyotes to have to come farther down for their food. Yes, this is a problem and yes, I’m aware that they are getting into the neighborhoods. We think that one of our cats might have been eaten by one in May. I just really think that if you’re going to live that close to the wilds, you need to be prepared for the wilds to be coming to you.