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April 15, 2005 3:30am 2
You’re supposed to talk to dying people, even if they don’t seem to respond. You’re supposed to bend down and whisper in their ear, tell them you love them, tell them it’s okay, tell them they’ve loved you well, tell them, “Sleep, sleep, we’re ready to let you go.” And I do that, lean down to her ear and talk to her, but even if she were just fine and conscious she wouldn’t hear those words, she’d be saying, “Beg pardon?” again and again, begging and begging my pardon, and she'd be frustrated and I’d be frustrated and we’d both give up in frustration. So I do that, but not too much, because I don’t want to frustrate her now; her hearing departed long before the rest of her was ready.3
The friends and family gather round and she did look around at everyone but even two years ago she’d look across the room and not be sure who she was looking at, come close, stinkingly close, to peer with blind eyes, to find out who was whom. And in the past few weeks, since the stroke, she’d greet everyone with kindness and “Soooo nice to see you,” but ask who it was once they’d gone. Eyes long lost their proper function, memory a less distinct fade, but mostly gone by now, surely.4
Yesterday, no, two days ago now, just after writing of being comfortable at last in her apartment, I got the call that her condition had turned for the worse. I arrived at the hospital to find her masked and catheterized, her breathing distressed and rattling like a snake, on and on and doctor after doctor appeared like magic in that place notable for their absence. A nurse checked her feeding tube and deep red blood poured out from the two-day-old implant. Another nurse. Doctors. Don’t know the reason for her change in status, aspiration or cardiac failure. Don’t know the reason for the bleeding, a puncture during surgery (though that likely would have shown up earlier) or a spontaneous GI bleed or or. To investigate and repair would mean further invasion, further surgery she may not tolerate in this condition, this condition of her lungs filling with fluid. 5
“What do you want to do?” they asked me, almost advising, but only almost.6
And I’m the only one to ask, the only close and able family she has left. Her son, my brother, well, he’s the one, I just found out, whose favourite game as a small child was to sneak out of the house and lie down across the road, the curve of Braefoot, and jump up laughing as traffic screeched to a halt. So he, institutionalized since 1952, would not be helping me with any decisions here.7
Nurses stroke her head and say, “I don’t think it will be long.” The portable x-ray team prop her up for a chest x-ray, and suddenly, of course, her breathing quiets, and everything seems calmer. The report on that, from a young guy surely too young to be a doctor, is that her lungs are patchy with fluid, as expected, consistent with aspiration. We could give her antibiotics, but the best that they could aim for would be a return to her status of the previous day, and that, optimistically. And then there is the bleeding problem. 8
Everyone looked at me, and I said “I’ll leave the medication decision to you, but what’s really important to me is that she not suffer.” And I guess that meant don’t give her anything, since they haven’t, other than morphine and plenty of it.9
Later the same too-young doctor told me the radiologist didn’t think the x-ray looked that bad, but that these things take a while to show up, promptly sowing doubt in my mind, that I had removed the possibility of her recovery. I have to remind myself what recovery would mean: the remainder of her days in nursing care, fed through a tube, unsafe to get out of bed on her own, not remembering even to wipe herself after toileting, confused and unable to find words, not knowing even old friends, not even wanting the books on tape, the radio, loud in headphones on clogged ears. The remainder of her days a miserable semblance of living. I have to remind myself. She’d have needed surgery, she’d have needed aggressive drug therapy.10
When is a body worth saving? This one is not black and white, and this one decision I will have to live with. I think I’ll need some counseling, I don’t know.11
Still she clings to this wasted body. No food, no fluid for almost two days, she must be parched, parched to parchment. Muslin skin, Everything sunken in. Blind eyes open, sigh shut with a stroke to the forehead. What does she know? Does she feel just sick, so bad there are no thoughts? Her mind has been so confused; is this just one more confusion? Morphine is the sweet blessing here, it puts her to sleep, slows her breath, saps the mind of wondering or even wandering.12
Morphine, my final gift to her, and hers to me.13
Author notes
part 1 of 3
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Comments
1 - 15 of 15
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Sad. This hurts. I've been here.
Lost both my cousins to suicide
and my grandmother died of some rare
disease on my fathers side. Sometimes
we just have to be kind and sadly,
let them go. Well penned zara.
;
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Been through this too much lately. Had three freinds pass away in just over a year.
It was all too easy to go back with your reading.
John -
You're supposed to do a lot of things in life, and so you do them, even if they make no sense to your head and numb your heart. The images in this write stun my emotions. Sometimes life just makes no sense at all.
Morphine, my final gift to her, and hers to me.
As perfect an ending as you could write.
Hugs, zara. Hugs.
~Cisco
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Thelyricism of this, particularly the first paragraph are nicely managed, blurring that old prose-versus poem line in a way I appreciate. It works nicely as a comprehensive chapter, the remembrance and reflection setting up the rest. Not strictly sure the second paragraph is neccesary. The first is the more unique and the more telling image.
I was present while my mother and father had to confront her own condition and treatment. My father wanting to find the end tooth and nail, and resenting to some degree (it seemed to me) my mother's preference for finally saying enough was enough. It was very hard watching a woman I cared for so deeply, who had always been bright and strong quickly slide under. She was young. But in part, having seen my grandafather at 98, having outlived everyone he knew, and unable to do so many of the things he cared about basically decide to let go, it helped me accept and respect my mother's decision.
Nicely done, zara. -
Heartwrenching, yet a beautiful write. How hard it musdt've been on you. Thank you for sharing this part of yourself. I'm off to read part 2...
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well ... beautifully writ .... kept me with you the whole way ..... the last line is perfect .... such a truisim ... thats when i cried ... but i think i am just tired .... >>> EM
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I consider myself a tough man, able to endure seeing more pain and suffering than most, but this made me tear up. I wish I could give you a big hug.
Beautifully written piece. It must have been hard to put it on paper. I admire that you were able to do it, and do it lovingly. And thank you so much for sharing it. That it made tears run down my cheeks reassured me that I am humane after all. Thank you.
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Something screams at me that ..a thing so painful should not read so beautiful, but even as it does I'm left here thinking this reads beautifully. You applied your 'poetic' voice to this so well in the rhythm of the prose, your descriptions so vivid, yet at the same time so real of you, of many of us ...perhaps.
And the subject.. well how can we know? if only we could know when it is 'right' to step aside.. when we are the ones more able to judge the quality of life. It's hard, oh so hard ... and the questions - could it have been different, what would that have been, do they know? ..What value is life without that spark of ..light that makes us who we are - they are, what worth is there, if it seems reality is no longer there for those who have disappeared... yet remain to haunt us..
I rambled...
~~Lisa/whims -
A very touching piece, so personal and passionate in it's informtion anad detail. This situation is such a sad one and hope that we don't have to go through it often. Nice write.
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It was supposed to say "Magnificent" sorry
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Magnifivent....
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aww, thuis was heartbreaking zara, i really hope this wasn't based on real experiences...i went through this in real life, and the scars are never healed..
lots of love and blessings,
~Alea -
I am a certified nurses assistand and see this every day it is in deed heart breaking ,as you never know from day to day,or when your loved ones are pain free,
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I have been there a thousand times or more, held the hands of the dying and the hands of the relatives too..
this is such a personal piece and so precious that all I will say is, I think you are very brave and show true compassion for posting this
~GILL~xxxxx -
ahhhh- Zara- (sigh)
M
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