Week 7. Montante. Ch. 12 Dying & Spirituality

Week 7. Montante. Ch. 12 Dying & Spirituality

 

The role of death is something that we will eventually have to face in one way or another. The average life expectancy has been reported at and all time high of nearly 78 years. There are four types of death that this chapter has mentioned.

Clinical Death: This is when your respiration and heartbeat have stopped. It is the least useful to the medical profession because it is unreliable. Fortunately, since the practice of CPR many individuals have been saved. This section brought up something that connected with me because at almost every job I have had we would always have to be CPR certified. I think it is important for everyone young and older adults/students should know the basics of CPR and its importance. This section also suggested that due too several recent studies pushing to the beat of the Bee gee’s song “Staying Alive” gives the approximate number of compressions/minute (Harman, 2008 page 281). This made me think of when I was getting certified I was not told about that fact, but I did however learn it from an episode of the hit show “The Office”. Though I would not take their CPR training seriously, it did bring it out to the audience as a CPR fact that most people who probably did not know of.   

Brain Death: to be brain dead, it would mean the brain has not received enough oxygen for 8 to 10 minutes and all electrical activity has stopped. When the cortex and midbrain stop functioning brain death as occurred.

Biological Death: is when a person is considered dead when the electrical activity in their brain stops. Most organs become dead and these organs cannot be used for organ transplantation.

Social Death: is when an individual is treated as dead but the person is still biologically alive.

When a child is sick or dying they might fear their caregivers will leave them. If a child parent is dying the child will mostly feel abandoned. Older children mourn the loss of their pets deeply. While reading this section I connected with mourning the loss of my pet from a couple of years ago. I had a cat for about 13 years and I was very attached to her. I was about 21 and I really had a huge breakdown when we had to put her to sleep. This also reminded me when my other friends lost their pets and they mourned deeply for theirs as well. As silly as it sounded, I do respect when people tell me that their pet has past away because it is not something to not take serious just because they are not actually humans.

Grieving plays a huge part after death has occurred. Many people grief very differently than others and sometimes we do not understand, but we should accept what it is. Many psychologists say that it is a healthy encounter with the crisis of death and I feel that to be very true. Anticipatory grief has four phases: depression, a heightened concern for the ill person, a rehearsal of death and an attempt to adjust to what is likely to occur after the death. I am one who was not familiar with anticipatory grief. I was more exposed to the 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. It all depends on a person how they chose to deal with death and making sure they go through these faces. It takes time and patience, but it will soon or later be accepted in their life.

The role of the funeral has become either bad or good. I say that because I believe that everyone deserves a funeral, however it can become a huge burden on families because of the cost of dying. I would see many people on social media sites asking people to donate to their go-fund me accounts to their one ones. I feel that it is a great platform for others to ask for donations. The cost of dying is high that most people do not want to die for that reason. As people get older, they see based on their other relatives who has passed and do not want to put that burden of money on others. This section talked about Costco selling coffins and I remember seeing that on the news. Even though I feel everyone deserves one it is not easy to do as much as it is to say. I still feel that funeral expenses are at the high end, but I still have to look at it in at a business aspect. They too need to make money and even though we should respect that it is hard to do when it comes to the moment when we need it the most.