Shuffling off this mortal coil
Today I had the rather unpleasant expereince of telling a 40 yr old man's sisters that he was going to die.
It was needless to say unpleasant.
Put in this position by my registrar being too busy, I was left to exaplin to these ladies that their brother had an advanced cancer and had probably days to weeks left to live. As I tried to simply explain the details I could see one of them choking back the tears and holding back her disbelief. I saw the other just nod and let the news wash over her as a reassuring explanation of something she deep down already knew.
This poor guy is pretty sick. His wife died a few years ago and he will leave a young daughter behind to be cared for by his family. Within a few hours of my meeting with the sisters, crowds of relatives were piling out his door with women sobbing in the corridors as they paid their respects to this man on the other side of the grave whilst they could. I purposely walked to the other elevator so as not to bump into them, partly becasue I did not want to disturb them, but partly because I did not want to have to deal with it myself.
Death is not natural. No one 'dies with dignity'. Death is an unnatural thing that fractures our relationships and breaks down any meaning in our life. We toil and strive to get ahead in our careers and have a great lifestyle... but for what? In the end the fate of the poor man is the same as that of the rich man... they all die and take nothing with them. Death makes our lives now meaningless.
We sanitise death today. We use euphemisms like "passed away" or "loved ones" when in reality we all live in denial of our own mortality. I noticed this even amongst my own bosses who in their pursuit of prolonging life could not bring themselves to tell this patient's family the reality or to talk about a "Do Not Resuscitate" order.
And so over the coming days we will transfer this patient to the Palliative Care team and ship him off somewhere else, out of sight, where he can die... and we can all pretend like life goes on.
There's something seriously wrong with that.
posted by J @ 11:31 PM
2 Comments:
Death does make life meaningless doesn't it?
Eternity makes it all meaningful though. That poor guy. I seriously wouldn't know how I could do what you did and keep a professional face.
Thanks for doing the hard task mate.
I sometimes wonder that if we find it hard to take death here... well... we're all going to have to go through it... but it's the eternal death which we DON'T have to... why not take it?
How hard it is a task to tell someone that they will die eternally.
We sanitise most things in our society, not just death. I would suggest you do a palliative care term next year see just how helpful doctors can be for the dying and more importantly for their families. You will see the entire spectrum of human emotions. Confronting - yes, rewarding - absolutely
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