But The One In Front Of The Gun Lives Forever

ive worked in hospitals for a long time, and years ago i saw a patient very frequently. he came in once every month or so, inpatient. one day he told me what he kept coming in for. he had a knee replacement, but it kept rejecting. so the hospital would take it out, keep him, and then put it back in. he told me that he was fighting to just have it amputated. he said he was in his 70s and he just didnt have enough time anymore to spend it all in the hospital. he said that he felt he could live a better and more fulfilling life for the years he had left if they just took the leg off. he could get a prosthetic and just not have to go to the hospital all the time. he said that the doctors were fighting him on it but that was what he wanted. i said that i understood, and that i hoped he could get that amputation

anyway, some time passed, and i saw him again. i asked whats up, he was beaming and said, "i got it done! they took the leg off!" i was like, "hell yeah man, how are you feeling?" and he said "well it hurts right now but im not gonna have to come here all the time anymore." he left the hospital some time later, and i never saw him again, which is all you can hope for when you work in a hospital

he also had an elective surgery, a "voluntary" surgery. he chose to have an amputation because he was suffering with the limb intact. and thats really what we're doing too. yes, transition surgeries are elective, but that doesnt mean that theyre not necessary to improve the quality of our lives

I downloaded the PDF to my hard drive and I open it again whenever I'm feeling too suicidal to do much else, but not enough to start booking a ride to the hospital. And every time without fail I only go up to a few pages before backing off and choosing to live another day just because suicide suddenly seems even more unbearable than whatever the hell upset me in the first place.

All the book really does is [I'm pulling a summary from GoodReads here as, again, I've read no more than 5 pages] "discusses the social aspects of suicide, the right to die, anger, loneliness, depression, stress, hopelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, the consequences of a suicide attempt, and how to get help."

But it also starts with the author kindly asking the reader to complete the book before going through with anything, and for some reason I'm compelled to really just try to read it all before finalizing everything. Despite not yet completing it (hopefully never will) I think I can safely say it's saved my life at least a few times now.