moe and i met online in approximately 1994-95 or thereabouts; we met IRL on new years/saint fred’s birthday, 1996-1997 (sleeping together by the middle of january); and we got married on june 21st, 1998.
in 2003, when i was 43 years old, i experienced a brain injury — a burst cerebral arteriovenous malformation — which kills 50% of the people who have it. if i had had a DNR on file, at the time, they would have allowed me to die. because they did not, moe rushed me to the hospital, and i experienced 11 hours of brain surgery two days later. when i regained consciousness, eight days after that, the nurses told me that i had a brain injury and i was going to have to spend THE REST OF MY LIFE recovering from it. the FIRST THING I SAID was “why didn’t you let me die?”
EVEN THEN i wasn’t completely sold on the idea of being alive! 😒
when i got home from OCF this year, i figured it was time to make sure that, if something awful happens in the future (being 66 years old gets me thinking about these things, you know?), if i had a DNR on file, everybody would be a lot more secure. so, with moe’s blessing, i made an appointment with my doctor to get the papers in order.
at the end of july, this year (2026), moe told me that she is now a lesbian, and no longer wants to have sex with me. this was (and continues to be) quite a large shock, and my mood and anxiety have not been the best the past few weeks. however, when the time came for me to fill out the intake papers for my doctor’s appointment (remember that?), two of the forms were questionnaires about my mood and anxiety, and i filled them out honestly, with information from the past couple of weeks… which, apparently, alarmed enough of the right people that they emailed me, asking if i was okay, and offering me resources if i was really going to kill myself — something which i have said, repeatedly, over the past couple of weeks, but it was all hyperbole, because i was (and am) in such shock… I AM NOT GOING TO KILL MYSELF, regardless of how much i feel like it. i said it, that is true, but no one should believe that it is true, because IT IS NOT!!
i went to my doctor’s appointment, yesterday, and was questioned up and down about my mood and anxiety, the reasons why i am in such “bad shape” — the doctor repeatedly said that she was “alarmed” and “concerned” — and my reasoning for wanting a DNR at this time. she said it was “suspicious”, and refused to sign the papers until i had seen ANOTHER doctor, and gotten him to sign off on it. then she would think about it…
so, i’ve got another appointment, with ANOTHER doctor — WHO I HAVE NEVER MET!! — in A MONTH, and if i can get him to sign off on it, my doctor will THINK ABOUT giving me a DNR… 😒
i mentioned this to the coach of my neuro-support circus class, who said that she has a friend who is a death doula, and a notary, and she should be able to help me bypass this whole shenanigan… it would be really funny if i went to this new doctor’s appointment, in a month, with a signed and notarized copy of a DNR, and laughed in his face.