Talk to Me (Or, Tie Me Up and Beat Me)

Last Monday I had occasion to spend some time (quite a lot, actually) in the emergency room of our local hospital. I'm fine now, thanks, but on Monday I had a bellyache, and my doctor sent me to the ER for a bunch of tests.

They put me in a fairly comfortable room with my own loo and a good view of people's passing feet. As I languished on my gurney people came in from time to time to take vital signs, information, and bodily fluids. One of them asked whether I had an advance directive. No, I said.

So he brought me one, only it was from the wrong pile of papers. He brought me a mental health advance directive. I had no idea that such things existed, never in all my years having fallen into the hands of the mental health establishment, for which God be thanked. I knew at once it was a mistake. Surely they weren't expecting me to go mad in there.

So, a mental health advance directive. This is how one wishes to be treated when one goes completely bonkers. I didn't sign it, but rather brought it home to share with dinner guests, since a good laugh promotes digestion. Now I will share one of the best parts with you. "Seclusion," I guess, means a padded cell, and "restraint" means a strait jacket.

Preferences about emergency interventions

I would like the interventions below to be tried before use of seclusion or restraint is considered (check all that apply)

• "Talk me down" one-on-one
• More medication
• Time out/privacy
• Show of authority/force
• Shift my attention to something else
• Set firm limits on my behavior
• Help me to discuss/vent feelings
• Decrease stimulation
• Other_____________

"Chain me to a hot radiator," an alternative suggested by a dinner guest, was not on the list, nor were "leave me the hell alone" or "tie me up and spank me." Personally I would prefer "Shift my attention to something else." (Oh, look! A submarine!)

Someone pointed out that Paragraph Eight essentially nullifies the whole document: "You should be aware that there are some circumstances where your provider may not have to follow your directive."

The Advance Directive for Mental Health Care bears the marks of having been uttered by the New Jersey State Legislature, as it mentions particular statutes. Long live the State.

Kate Gallison

Where Babies Come From

Assemblyman Gilbert Wilson introduced a bill in the New Jersey legislature a couple of weeks ago mandating DNA testing for all newborns. The mothers or their insurers (oh, joy! Another medical bill) would be required to pay for the test. Some public good would result from this, right? I mean, this is our legislature. They have our interests at heart. At very least, wealth would flow into the coffers of the DNA labs. Jobs would be created.

But then what? Suppose the baby's father was not who the mother said he was. This, after all, is the stated purpose of the bill, to reveal the truth before... before... what? The father comes to love the child? The family raises the child to maturity?

Saved from such a fate, the disappointed non-father gets to scold his wife or lover while she's still lying in her hospital bed nursing his non-baby. "Shirley, you slut! We're through! Never expect another penny from me!" And he spits on the baby and leaves. How is this useful?

Not to get all political on you, but it seems to me that the view of women embodied in this bill is that most of us are sly, deceitful creatures out to get everything we can from the men. These are the same straw women that the Republicans are said to be making war on. I don't know any women like that. We can make our own living now, raise our own children. Guys, if your woman offers you a child, it's a gift.

I read somewhere that in certain South Sea Island tribes a man who raised another man's child as his own considered himself the winner. He got the prize, the child. Babies are treasures. They're worth whatever they cost, whether they're your own, or adopted, or fathered by the milkman.

Kate Gallison