Facing with reality

My BIL j from Thailand is in town to escape the flood and he is now in Penang hospita fighting his Cancer. The chips are down and his chance is slim. I was with him a short while ago and the Doctors have told his wife that she have to be prepared for any eventuality. Anything can happen anytime now.

Looking at him brings back recent memories of my FIL J. The symptoms at the last stage of Cancer is the same. The patient could hardly drink and eat and they have ulcers on the mouth and tongue. The worst thing is that they havea lot of mucus and it got stuck in the throat as the Cancer spreads. Gradually, heir appetite and energy gets leas and weak. The Doctors will give them pain killers and eventually, they will switch to morphine and the dosage will increase as their illness intensify. The patient will see illusions or hallucinations because of the heavy dosage of the drug. Finally, they will stop eating and drinking and their major organs will shut down one by one. Their blood pressure will fall and they will gradually slip into Coma and die.

If you think that the patient is suffering, then their loved ones seeing them slipping away and cannot do anything about it will suffering more intensely. The stress , pain and hurts gets deep into their emotions and life. Their life will never be the same again and the memory runs deep and will re-surface regularly for the remaining life of the loved ones. It would be many times more painful.

The situation is beyond any one's control. It takes a strong mind and strong heart to live through this ordeal. Before the patient die, everyone have to face the reality and bite the bullet and live through this difficult period of time. In Asia, the culture promotes family values and ties and this relationship networking helps hte loved ones to coup with the situation tremedously. In the West, the people handles it differently as from young, the people live quite independently and their bond with each other is not so close as in Asia. In such case, the pains and hurts is less as the matter is often left to the professionals.

In my BIL J case, the DOctors in Penang found out that the treatment offered by the Thai Doctors was wrong and the chemcial imbalance in his body was serious and lacking or excess in certain chemicals could kill the patient or put them in coma.At this stage, there is no much one can do but as a hindsight, it is recommendable for the patient to have second opinion regularly to ensure that there is no slip ups.

It is in the interest of the patient that he should be allowed to close his relationship with his friends and relatves and give instructions for his funeral arrangements and help him to put his affairs into proper arrangements. Going is tough but these final steps is just as important so that the patient can go peacefully and lighter. Death is nver an option, so learn to dance in the rain.

Namaste.