“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful”- Joshua J.Marine.
It has always been fascinating for me to hear different definitions of what a meaningful life truly is. However, during my general block at Tygerberg Hospital, I have been exposed to many trauma patients who have sustained gunshot wounds that have been detrimental to their lives and life changing for them at a physical and mental level. Do these changes affect the meaning of your life?
This question has been answered for me by a patient I treated at Tygerberg Hospital during my second week of the block. He was a 35 year old male who sustained a gunshot wound to the thoraco-abdominal area that ruptured his spine which resulted in a T10 motor and sensory complete paraplegia. This means that he will only have full function of his arms but below the belly and bilateral legs motor and sensory function is impaired (Nas, 2015). Before this incident he was functionally independent in all activities of daily living (ADL’s).
According to Nas, 2015, patients will T10 injuries have good outcomes after rehabilitation. If they are adherent to the treatment they have a better outcome such as being able to independently transfer into a wheelchair.
The impact of this injury means that the patient will not walk again. Although he has sustained such an emotional and physical trauma, he still believes that “everything happens for a reason” and is grateful to still be alive. He may never be able to walk again but he is still adherent to treatment and tries his best to cope with new strategies in order to ensure that he has a meaningful life. For him this means being able to be independent in daily living and loving what he does. He is very motivated and pushes through the treatment sessions regardless of the difficulty, the easiest functional activity for the ordinary person is sitting up, but for him this is a huge struggle. Nevertheless he has a smile on his face and gives of his best effort.
Meaningful life is viewed as the cornerstone of well-being and central human motivation. It also refers to having functional outcomes in life (King, 2014). As for this patient, his functional outcome is to achieve the ability to go from laying to sitting over the edge of the bed independently. Once he has achieved this goal, he will feel a sense of what is perceived as meaningful life because he is goal driven.
Clinically experiencing this has taught me that a meaningful life depends on what you make of it despite your physical capabilities. A positive mind set is all you need in order to achieve your meaning of life.
References
King, S. J. (2014). Life is pretty meaningful. American Psychologist .
Nas, K. (2015). Rehabilitation of spinal cord injuries . World Journal of Orthopedics, 8-16.
2 thoughts on “A Meaningful Life”
Hi Gowa,
Thank you for sharing this writing piece. I also find myself questioning the value of life and what a ‘meaningful life’ entails whilst on clinical block. I am going to give feedback following the rubric guidelines and then I will post spelling and grammar corrections as a separate comment.
Context: the context is definitely relevant to our ethics topics and what we have discussed in class. I think you can dive deeper into the clinical experiences of ‘meaningful life,’ and ‘meaningful death’ as your piece is a bit short and lacks a body of text. I like how you spoke about the patient and provided a quote, it helped me visualise as I was reading. Perhaps you can add a picture or a symbol of what resembles your view to further enhance your perspective or the patient’s perspective that you have been speaking about? I think this will really draw the reader in.
Argument: you have not made an argument and have not made any claims apart from the quote in the beginning which states what a meaningful life is according to an author (where did you find this quote?). I think you can really flesh this piece out and find literature and clinical experiences similar to the type of patient that you have described. This will assist in you making claims and creating statements. I suggest using each paragraph to make a claim or statement and the following paragraph to counter argue that and so on. This will ensure it is easy to follow and is logically consistent. This will also assist in convincing your reader.
References: you have not included any references apart from the quote. Although the quote is impactful it does not really create a strong view as you have only mentioned it and not drawn reference to it as you wrote. I think once you have found other literature to support and create your view and claims you will be able to draw back to that quote throughout your writing. I like that it immediately tells us what your view is but it is looses its importance when you do not relate back to it as you write.
Writing: there are a few spelling and grammatical errors, this will be in a separate comment.
I look forward to reading your final piece. You’re on the right track, well done!
Thank you,
Jemma
SPELLING AND GRAMMATICAL ERRORS
“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful”- Joshua J.Marine.
It has always been fascinating for me to hear different definitions of what a meaningful life truly is. However, during my general block at Tygerberg Hospital, I have been exposed to many trauma patients who have sustained gunshot wounds that have been detrimental to their lives and life changing for them at a physical and mental level. Do these changes affect the meaning of your life?
This question has been answered for me by a patient I treated at Tygerberg Hospital during my second week of the block. He was a 35 year old male who sustained a gunshot wound to the thoraco-abdominal area that ruptured his spine which resulted in a T10 motor and sensory complete paraplegia. This injury left him with complete loss of motor and sensory control below the level of his belly. Before this incident he was functionally independent.
The impact of this injury means that the patient will not walk again. Although he has sustained such an emotional and physical trauma, he still believes that “everything happens for a reason” and is grateful to still be alive. He may never be able to walk again but he is still adherent to treatment and tries his best to cope with new strategies in order to ensure that he has a meaningful life. For him this means being able to be independent in daily living and loving what he does. He is very motivated and pushes through the treatment sessions regardless of the difficulty, the easiest functional activity for the ordinary person is sitting up, but for him this is a huge struggle. Nevertheless he has a smile on his face and gives of his best effort.
Clinically experiencing this has taught me that a meaningful life depends on what you make of it despite your physical capabilities. A positive mind set is all you need in order to achieve your meaning of life.