she’s dead; my life won’t be worth living without her!”
So the doctor takes the man over to some chairs, sits him down and says “Good news: your wife is alive and is in ICU as we speak”.
The man jumps up and downs, shouting hail Mary’s and praising god. It was then he sees the doctors stern look and returns to a stoic form.
“Unfortunately”, sighs the doctor,
“She received extensive damage to her spine and therefore her spinal cord. What that means is your wife is going to be a total vegetable; she won’t be able to walk, talk, eat, move in anyway, relieve or defecate for herself.
Tears well up in the Man’s eyes.
The doctor continues “She will need a hospital bed fitted in your house, heart and blood pressure monitors, a feeding and breathing tube; a catheter for her bladder and rectum. This will require a professional, so you’ll need a live in nurse to manage all of this.
The man is now crying badly at this point.
The doctor ends with: “Oh, and I’ve just gotten off the phone with your insurer and they won’t cover this. So you’re looking at around $350,000 per year.
It was then the man loses it and breaks down in hysterical sobs. Telling the doctor in between that he’s retired and wonders where he’s going to get the money for it all.
It was at this point that the doctor puts his arms around the man, looks him deep in the eyes and says:
