Saturday, April 24, 2010

It's Life or Death


I don't think anyone is ever truly prepared to make life and death decisions about a person, especially a loved one. I know that my family wasn't in the Spring of 2001, when my grandfather took a turn for the worse. I walked into his room expecting to see Papa the way I had always seen him...through a child's eyes. He was a strong man; muscular. His head was covered with soft brown hair that only showed a small amount of grey considering he was 70. The day my dad called me, I walked into Papa's room and I hardly recognized the small man lying in his bed. He looked at me and said, "Hi Jen" the way he always had for as long as I could remember. His voice was small too. Frail. He had been sick off and on for a couple of years. Smoking cigarettes and eating our wonderful Southern cooking had finally caught up to him. He had several surgeries over the past few years to clear out arteries and stents to open things up. He also had cancer and had been on dialysis for months. He was tired. I think we were all tired. Every time he went into the hospital, we treated each visit as our last; but now the time was really here. I was angry because aside from the possibility that another surgery or more dialysis might prolong his life, he was quitting. What kind of life was that though? My head was buzzing when I looked at my father and uncles. How can I watch these strong men all crumble at once? I was angry that Papa was lying in his own bed and not in a hospital somewhere getting "fixed up" the way he always had.
There was a stranger in the room. Who is this strange woman sitting in the corner just watching us? I realized she was a hospice nurse sent to guide him (and us) through the dying process. I hated her. I hated what she represented and I wanted her to leave. However, it is now with great admiration that I talk about this woman and what she did for Papa and my family. She monitored his comfort level. There were no I.V.'s, no respirators. She didn't bring anything in her bag to resuscitate him. She sat quietly in the corner and watched as we went through our grieving, only coming out of the shadow to give pain medication. She understood that it was a waiting game for Papa and it didn't involve her at all. Life was taking it's course. My dad is the oldest son. I think probably the favorite too. When Papa was ready he asked my dad to give him something that would put him into a deep sleep until his breath stopped. The hospice nurse took my dad and showed him what to do. In that moment, the two strongest men I know ended their relationship on this Earth together. My grandfather had helped bring my dad into this world, and my dad helped my grandfather leave. All of our holding on to him came down to that moment, when he was finally at peace.
My family practiced what is known as Passive Euthanasia. We did not take any measures to prolong my grandfather's life, and we did not do anything to cause his death either. We allowed him to finish out his life in his own room, with his family and with minimal pain. Aside from the pain of missing him, looking back it was a beautiful experience. Birth and death are the common bond that all humans share. The way different cultures handle the dying process varies depending on their beliefs. I often wonder how I would have felt if Papa would have been in horrible pain. I wonder if my family would have assisted him in proactively ending his life, known as Active Euthanasia, which would have sped up his death in order to end the suffering. While Americans do not legally practice Active Euthanasia (with the exception of only a few states), other countries do and it's a battle ethics about a person's choice over their bodies in life or death.


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