Wanting to Pass Away with Little to No Difficulties

Faced with the trials of life and death, making the choice on DNR, translated…

Early that morn, my friend came to my door, told me, with full fatigue, “We’d, decided on no resuscitation.”

Two years ago, my friend’s younger sister in her thirties fell ill, and she was in the fourth stage of lung cancer, everybody in the family was shocked, but thankfully, they’d, bought a medical insurance coverage for her before she’d fallen ill, so it’d, helped out with the economics a little, it’s just, that the members of his family needed to take turns, caring for her, and for over a year, everybody became, too tired.

When I’d met my friend over a dozen years ago, his family already got, torn apart, his mother vanished from years before, as she’d contacted him again, she only had about a month to live; his younger sister too, went missing a lot, he’d seen her, only, a handful of times each and every year.  Until in recent years, his household economics started getting better, and that was when the whole family would get together on New Year’s Eve for the meals, his younger sister also had a stable job, and, as their days are beginning to look up, then, heavens played this, cruel joke on them all.

Because they have no idea when death is to come, he’d decided to take advantage of the time, when his younger sister wasn’t in treatment, he’d taken her abroad, they’d gone to Tokyo, Thailand, went on a cruise to Okinawa; on the days she couldn’t go, my friend had, pushed his younger sister along on her wheelchair, and trekked around the streets of Taipei, once, he’d pushed her from the N.T.U. Hospitals, all the way to Gongguan, then, they rode back to the hospital in a cab together, and afterwards, he’d, described this wonderful adventure they’d ended up sharing together to me.

My friend told, that his younger sister had her better days, but, she was, constantly in pain.  He’d asked her repeatedly, how she’d wanted her own funeral, and a year later, she’d given him the answer, “I didn’t fulfill my filial piety to our parents, I don’t want a Buddhist funeral, I’m afraid of going to hell”, she’d not believed in any religions at all, but, fearing hell after death, she’d, become, christened.

Awhile ago, she was in critical condition, the medical staff resuscitated her back by force.  I’d gone to visit her in the hospital a couple of times, and, she was having difficulties, breathing, once the nurse’s came into transfuse some blood into her, and mentioned that the transfusions might hurt a bit, it wasn’t, a bit, she’d, cried under the covers all the way through.

Although people told him to hold on to the hopes, to work hard, to keep on living, but, it’s like the writer, Man-Juan Chang said, “a writer told her that it’s a blessing that she got to look after her demented father, because the reader didn’t have the experiences of looking after a demented elderly parent”.  How can it be happy, caring for someone who’d fallen ill?  Even if there’s happiness, the caretakers, are just, forcing themselves, to smile on.

From before when I’d worked as a security guard, I’d gone to work at a nursing facility, there were, a dozen of seriously ill patients who’d become, unconscious, they lain on those cocoon-like white beds, relied on the plastic tubes to keep them alive.  And although, the atmosphere there was, quite peaceful, but it was, the scariest place I’d, ever been in.

We will all, eventually die, I hope, that, I don’t, give anybody too much trouble, that I get to leave this world, with my dignity intact, but, perhaps, this, is just, my own wish…

And so, from this man’s experiences and observations, he’d, realized how important it is, for those who’d fallen ill, to die with dignity, and that, is the problem, because the family members usually wouldn’t be, willing, to let go, that is why, there are, so many who are still alive (physically), but no more so, psychologically, think of all of those bedridden patients in a comatose, lying in those hospices, or the elderly relying on the tubes to live off of in the nursing homes or hospitals, would you, want your own lives to continue like that???  I know I wouldn’t, if I ever get like that, just, UNPLUG me!!!