Pacemaker

Another Modern Day Medical Dilemma

You know, it has become very popular in the United States to implant an electronic device in the torso of people--mostly rich, elderly people--which regulates their heartbeat. Sometimes this device is called a "pacemaker". Does that sound familiar?

One of my elderly friends had one installed in his body and was completely satisfied.

The battery of the device had a ten-year guarantee and before the guarantee expired he planned to have the doctors replace his battery with a new one.

"Hell," he told me once, "my heart could go on beating forever".

Which made me think: what if his body wears out and he wants to die? Does the pacemaker keep right on keeping his heart beating? And if his heart is beating--can the doctors ever pronounce him dead? And if he has real good insurance, and if the doctors are not too scrupulous (as many MDs seem to be these days), could they keep him/it going for years? Hmmm?

The dream of eternal life realized in a kind of bizarre way!

Oddly enough, after his wife died, my "elderly friend" quoted above solved all these hypothetical problems by blowing his brains out with a pistol so I guess his pacemakered-heart ran out of blood to pump so the paramedics that were called must have pronounced his bloodless body dead.

Isn't modern medicine wonderful?

Tomasito, 2008

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