There was contact information to fill out and questions about whether you wanted to be buried or cremated and if you wanted a funeral. I hadn’t thought of my funeral, but I knew I wanted to be cremated. When I got to the Personal Self-Assessment Chart (PSAC), I held my pen over the empty checklist boxes, wondering how much I valued my life and, more pressingly, what weaknesses I could stand to live with. Bethanny explained that the rationale behind doing the PSAC was that in order to help strangers with their transitions, you had to be prepared for your own.

She assured us that spouses usually couldn’t pull the plug, so I didn’t feel bad not putting Bobby down as my contact person here, either. Bethanny said it wasn’t a shortcoming; they just cared too much. We were to ask someone else we trusted with the paperwork. I would decide that later.

How it worked was, the PSAC started at 100 percent, which meant you had 100 percent of your faculties. If you were involved in an accident and could walk away with full self-care, normal intake of food and drink, and full consciousness, then you were still at full capacity. But, really, the macabre joke was, who could say any of us were ever operating at 100 percent? From there, faculties decreased in 10-percent increments, starting with “some evidence of disease” at 90 percent. By 80 percent, although someone could still fully care for herself and maintain the same level of activity, suddenly work came with some effort. Nutrient intake was just beginning to be reduced, though the bright spot was lucidity and full consciousness. By 60 percent, mobility was reduced and disease was significant; consciousness could waver between full, drowsy, and confused.

It went on and on like this, down to a 0-percent PSAC, which was, of course, dead. We were to choose our personal preferences to correspond with each assessment: DNR, IV, feeding tube, or “extra help”—i.e., blood transfusions, dialysis, transplants.

Did I want someone to care for me? Did it matter that at 50 percent I mainly had to lie down or at the very least sit still? At what point would I request a final exit? I thought about how selfish, at each increment, it would be to stay alive. How much I was willing to put out those around me. Whether or not I wanted artificial nutrition or an IV was not something I had previously considered. Did I want a blood transfusion or dialysis? I don’t know—both? I was healthy, active, and only thirty-seven. Despite my morbid fascinations, I hadn’t exactly envisioned myself in a hospital bed surrounded by pacing loved ones, with cords, tubes, and other things coming off my person.