Sometimes I do wonder, which is more cruel?
To continue active treatment or to maximise comfort?
It is nothing uncommon that in chronic illnesses, there will be a point whereby all treatment is futile, as in, actively giving medicine or surgery will only shorten lifespan or decrease quality of life.
Imagine when surgery might end up in coma, and you are only sustained by machines.
Imagine when you are to the stage whereby your body is too frail to take anymore high dose of medications.
Imagine you cannot eat because you tumour is too big that blocked up the path of the intestine, and all that you can take is liquid while immediately after you take it, all those taken in have to be sucked out by a tube.
Imagine that you are so breatheless, even though you are lying in bed and trying your very best to breathe, but you still feel that you are drowning.
WHERE IS THE QUALITY OF LIFE?
I am not pro-euthanasia, but I do agree that THERE IS SOME POINT IN TIME that one should learn to let go.
LESS IS MORE.
How would you know that you are not better off if you learn to let go?
I would never forget there was once that this professor said, "It is more humane to let go."
Letting go does NOT mean using medicine to kill the person or anything to hasten the death process, it is to manage whatever symptoms that arises and make sure that the person is comfortable as much as possible, especially in such tormenting moments like that.
It is, always very easy for those that are surrounding the person to say "go on! Go all the way! Tube and resuscitate, so long as staying alive, we don't care what state the person continue to live on (Okay, I added this last line)."
What if you are the one who is lying in bed, relying on others to change for you, clean you up and you can't even complete a simple task of wiping your own back, how distressing it could be? What if you are the one who can't even control your own breathing and has to rely on machine, and the next that you know is there you can't even clear your own airway and has to rely on the machine and the tube to suck it out? How uncomfortable it can be?
Sometimes I feel very painful for some of those I cared for, for seeing how they have to continue to go on because those that who "loved" them pushing them to go on without even thinking how much they could be suffering. And it is really difficult for the person to say "no" because you know that they don't mean harm, they just don't see how much you are actually going through and thought that it is better for you to carry on,
I remember of seeing how one had suffered, being intubated and extubated at least 5 times. Yes, F-I-V-E freaking times, how traumatizing it was and she herself expressed the wish of stopping all these, while the relative who spent less than half an hour with the person once in every few days said "Go on, all the way." 23 and a half hours of suffer, and he did not see that at all, he did not see the tears that flown when he was not around, only asking why give up.
I'd be crude and said that sometimes, this could actually be comparable to torture chamber, when you are just too frail to do anything.
Yet ultimately, there is nothing we can do but to carry on watching the vicious cycle, while doing our best in order to respect the wish of the family and, pray for the best.
