Some of the family like I, know for a fact, death will happen in this cancer case. I work in a hospital, I know this story all too well. Others, like to have a hope in a miracle, so much so that they only believe that will happen. As a hospital worker, I have also seen this exact same scenario over and over. In the end, the cancer victim and the family are constantly seeking to find the one doctor who has the answer, the one hospital that will save their beloved's life. It's super sad.
The people who know the truth about certain kinds of cancer have told them over and over. You can only prolong your life, but you will not live very long. These are the doctors. Yet, families are so desperate to save the person, they keep going to doctor after doctor seeking to find the one who will save them. They seek holistic medicine, wild prayer vigils, weeklong prayer conferences, and none of them including modern medicine can save this dying person's life. It's super sad. They can't be saved. This kind of cancer is aggressive, and we have no weapons to fight it, only prolong it.
Often times in my work in the hospital we hear the overhead speaker announce "Paul Bunyan" A Paul Bunyan announcement is some kind of fight among people, either yelling or throwing punches. Sometimes it includes the patient,but more often it is the family members fighting over the decisions for the patient.
I have had this issue with my brother in law. I became really angry about the choices they were making early on to help him. They decided to go with the natural route for survival, instead of chemo. I was furious about this. I was more than furious, I was outraged! How do you not do what a doctor who has studied this says? What makes you think you have any time to play around with natural products and healthy eating? So four months went by on the natural way and the cancer doubled in size. Well, I was extremly pissed. I blew up! I told them off! Yet in the end, chemo or natural, neither would have worked to fight this type of cancer.
Right now I'm struggling with end of life care. Because my sister in law and Rob believe a miracle will happen, they do not want to agree to end of life care. I am super upset about this, because, comfort care is the best thing anyone could give Rob right now and to the end. God gives miracles, people give comfort care.
They think for whatever reason that comfort care means admitting defeat, means not having faith in God, they won't do it. But comfort care is making a person who is dying suffer in less pain. It means a registered nurse will come to your house and administer extremly strong pain medication. It means someone will help change you if you cannot get up and go to the bathroom,it means someone will put a cold rag on your forehead and chapstick on your lips. If you choose not to have comfort care you will suffer a greater death. This upsets me, that anyone would want to suffer great pain or that anyone else would allow that, in hopes that God will miraculously save them. No one is Jesus except Jesus. We do not have to suffer to prove our faith.
I'm sad because I think my brother in law is choosing the path of the greatest pain to his death. All he has to do is accept comfort care and his passing will not be this intense suffering. Right now he goes the emergency room every other day to get intravenous pain drugs. Only people who are dying go the ER that often. Or the crazies in the mind.
I told my husband,if this should be my experience please I want comfort care. I want the highest amount of morphine pumped into me. What the f**k! Why would you suffer the most incredible painful death possible, when you can have the choice of comfort care? Just because you have comfort care does not mean you are giving up on your hope for a miracle, or your faith. It means dying with dignity and comfort.
Awaiting a sad painful death I am...............
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| The life choices we make. |
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