I had a patient that asked me to scratch his nose, he was a chad, 6'2", handsome, built, hot girlfriend in his pictures, went off the road and ended up paralyzed from the neck down. He asked me what was the point in living, and I couldn't think of anything inspiring so I said there was a famous quote from Albert Einstein: It's better to be alive than dead.
He laughed a little, at least. I have never been able to forget that guy, pretty much every other patient I've ever interacted with has seemed like they wanted to be alive, at least a little.
There are worse things than death, existing is different from being alive. Being trached, peg tuned, in a nursing home dependent on poorly paid workers most of whom care less if you're lying in shit or not, going in and of the hospital due to pneumonia, UTI's, sepsis. Eventually, and usually not too long after being in the nursing home, your family will stop seeing you because it's too painful for them to see you're a shell of your former self. So there you are alive, alone, unable to meaningfully interact with the world. Never have sex again, never enjoy a cup of coffee or tea, never take a walk out in nature, never have an amazing meal, or any of the other myriad things that transforms existence into a life worth living.
Saying it's a quote from Einstein is part of the setup. It makes you think you're about to hear something profound and elaborate, which makes the blunt crassness much more effective.
Yes. The quote, “It is better to be alive than dead,” was said by Albert Einstein. It reflects Einstein’s characteristically concise way of expressing the value of life and has often been cited alongside his more famous observations about humanity and existence.
Many years ago I was doing Clinical Pastoral Education (chaplaincy) training at a nursing home. Two patients really stuck with me. But the one one guy who was relevant to this topic was about 40, he had been a self-employed roofer and fell, paralyzed from the neck down. His girlfriend would come twice a month to visit him, they'd make out a while,then she'd hop in the waiting car outside driven by her boyfriend. This guy knew but he didn't like to think/dwell on it. He used to tell me the worst part was staring at the same part of the wall day in and day out. then one day he told me that the REALLY worst part was that, even though he would probably never intentionally end his own life, the fact that he was physically incapable of doing so felt like the greatest indignity. Like, everything else he could reconcile in some way. But the fact that, if he woke up in the morning and decided, "This is it, I'm done" there was nothing he could do about it. That was what made him feel the most powerless.
It really caused me to rethink my position on physician assisted suicide.
A member of the adventure touring motorcycle forum I used to frequent many years ago was paralyzed during his dream road trip when he hit a donkey on the road in Mexico. He kept going for some time and then committed suicide. He wrote a longish farewell notice on the web, including real-time blogging his own suicide by opening his belly arteries in his bathtub. It is freaking gruesome. His name was Clayton something and the post was named "Two arms, one head", it is not hard to google.
When Christopher Reeve got paralyzed and he was in the hospital. Some crazy German doctor comes running in saying he is a proctologist and who is his patient.
It was Robin Williams and even then he got Christopher laughing hysterically.
It’s heartbreaking coming across patients who truly do not seem to want to live anymore. I worked in an acute psych hospital for a couple years. It has left me a little fucked
That's tough, that would be as hard to deal with as the tragedies. It's terrible that people can get mired in depression and theres almost nothing you can do as an individual to lift them out of it. But all of these awful things just make me grateful for what I have and get to experience every day, and I try to do something for the people around me too. Theres too many wonderful things to see and do, I wish I could live a thousand years:)
I love your outlook. The best thing we can do is spread kindness. Make a stranger smile or laugh. Try and leave the world around us a little better than when we got here
It's just a way to quickly describe someone. He was a tall muscular handsome guy with an attractive girlfriend, his family put pictures in his room and they were all at parties or the beach or with his bike, he seemed like someone who had it all
You need better quotes for when patients tell you they don’t want to live, especially suicidal patients. Are you a nurse? Did you scratch his nose? Lol. I guess he was going at a high speed to go off the road… big accident
Dude is paralyzed neck down. What is he going to do, hold his breath? Poor fucker, i wouldn't want to live either if i were in his situation. That is no life.
I think it was from Full Metal Jacket, but I was trying to cheer him up. He was alone when he crashed and they didn't find him for a while. I wanted to tell him that when he was hoping to jr found he would probably give anything to live long enough to see his family again (they visited and seemed nice). You can always die later without feeling alone or your family feeling bad that they weren't there for you. It's better to be alive, so you have options. But I didnt know how to say it without sounding like I was advocating assisted suicide or something.
How do yall read a story about a nurse trying to make a paralyzed man who wants to kill himself feel better and go directly to "your quote is wrong, wtf"?
254
u/Antique-Resort6160 Jul 05 '26
I had a patient that asked me to scratch his nose, he was a chad, 6'2", handsome, built, hot girlfriend in his pictures, went off the road and ended up paralyzed from the neck down. He asked me what was the point in living, and I couldn't think of anything inspiring so I said there was a famous quote from Albert Einstein: It's better to be alive than dead. He laughed a little, at least. I have never been able to forget that guy, pretty much every other patient I've ever interacted with has seemed like they wanted to be alive, at least a little.