Terminal Lucidity and the Need to Precisely Conceptualize End of Life Experiences by Patricia Pearson
Quote:The cancer had spread to her brain by the time it was caught, and she had notable cognitive deficits based on where the
lesions lay. Her speech was halting; she couldn’t find words. You had to listen with attentive patience.
Then, suddenly, she regained a complete flair for crisp and incisive conversation. I remember having dinner with her and her family one night, and it was if she’d never been ill. She offered witty opinions about the subjects at hand, with energy and insight. We all thought that the whole - brain radiation she had undergone had quite obviously shrunk the tumors that had been blanketing her brain.
Two days later, she was dead. The oncologist got the final MRI results of her brain lesions back a week or so later and relayed what he saw to her husband. The tumors had not shrunk in the least after the radiation effort.
They had grown.
How to account for her mental vibrancy on the verge of death, then?
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'
- Bertrand Russell
- Bertrand Russell