Temple Grandin's Cows

I saw part of a movie once about Temple Grandin. Among other things, she's apparently a woman who likes cows. A fair bit of the movie was focused on her efforts to make a cow's last few minutes on earth better. She watched cows panic as they were routed into the chutes leading to the slaughter house, so she designed a better system. Built with curves and other features that keep the cow from becoming aware that anything untoward is happening up the path, cows routed through her system walk calmly -- dare I say enthusiastically? -- down the path to their demise.

I'm starting to feel like one of Grandin's cows. 

The cancer treatment is certainly feeling that way. The providers are all calm and reassuring, offering up their recommendations in the blandest terms possible, and so you start down the path that they recommend. As the little warning signs go up, they keep offering new drugs and adjustments to keep you on the path. Eventually, you wind up barely able to walk or stand, sleeping as much of your day away as you possibly can, and with every trip to the bathroom turning into something of a horror story. I have to say, a bolt to the head might be a relief.

But it's not just the cancer. In some ways, life, too, seems like a bit of a cow chute. I mean, you start out with a pretty wide range of options, but each choice you make narrows the range for subsequent choices, often without your even noticing, and then eventually you find yourself sitting alone at midnight in your 700 sq ft condo wondering what the hell happened -- or, to borrow a phrase from David Byrne, How did I get here? 

However it happened, unfortunately, much like for the cows in the chute, it's way too late to turn back. All you can do is keep moving forward until the hammer eventually drops. 

And, sure, that's sort of a depressing outlook, and I have cancer, so maybe I'm just unusually depressed. But I don't think so. If you were to look at the advertising for suicide prevention hotlines and whatnot you'd likely guess that teenagers are the age group most prone to suicide. But according to the CDC, the age group most prone to suicide is that of people 45 to 64. (Teens are actually the second lowest after children under 14.)

Based on this statistic, it seems reasonable to argue that there are more than a few middle aged folks out there who don't have cancer but nonetheless feel like cows in a chute. 

It's almost enough to make one a vegetarian.