Geraldine was warmly opinionated and, along with her husband, she'd raised her four daughters to be the same.
When work settled and time allowed, she melted into the couch next to any of her children who were home and turned on the Hallmark channel. If a movie showed people who couldn't care for themselves, she would remark, "I don't want to live like that," or "if that's me, don't bother doing all that."
On May 25, a clot blocked a blood vessel in Geraldine's heart. Her husband performed CPR. She was whisked to the hospital, where her heart survived, but lack of oxygen launched her brain into uncontrollable seizures. At age 56, her melodic Irish accent was silenced.
Her lips sagged around a breathing tube when I met her three weeks later. Her limbs lay wherever we put them. Kinked gray hair stood in all directions from her scalp, pushed aside by electrodes that recorded brain activity.
In the small conference room in our neuro intensive care unit, we discussed Geraldine's prognosis with her family.
More ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/well/live/the-symptoms-of-protracted-dying.html
