Letting a loved one go is a difficult process.
The decision to stop the life support is I guess a harrowing one.The decision mostly lies with the doctor but the patient's kin is taken into consideration before any such step is taken.One Mr X was by his hallucinating wife's bed-side everyday.I was not looking after that patient but one day when I was crossing by ,she cheerfully called out to me and pointed to the window and kept insisting that the child at the window was bugging her.We were on the fourth floor of the window of the only building.When the time came to stop the lifesupport,we were doing the difficult job of explaining things to the husband and he was obviously finding it very difficult to come to a decision.Suddenly one of my senior colleagues explained that he did not have to carry the burden of having made the final decision because the final decision lay with the doctor.The fully grown man just started weeping,in confusion,in relief,in sadness and I am not sure what else it was.
Medical profession is a venerated place where we allow utter strangers into the most vulnerable and hurting parts of our lives.We are given access to the pain of our society.How we react to the hurt is very different.
In India when disaster strikes,there is a commotion....there is screaming,yelling everyone around the two kilometre radius comes to know something's happened.
Another thing that struck me this week was a handover I listened to.Someone was being handed over as being from a deeply religious family,christian was specified.I stopped short in whatever I was doing to listen with my mouth gaping,I think.My second reaction was a deep chuckle.
Was being deeply religious a sickness?I guess the kid was right in a certain sense.
My education continues in cultures so different from where my roots are and yet when one talks of roots it is not the place where I was born,places where I grew up,the places where I spend some significant part of my life which I sense is my root,it is actually among people I have grown up with,met along this journey at different times and different places whom God has ordained to influence my life ..so the journey continues till I am safely Home.
The decision to stop the life support is I guess a harrowing one.The decision mostly lies with the doctor but the patient's kin is taken into consideration before any such step is taken.One Mr X was by his hallucinating wife's bed-side everyday.I was not looking after that patient but one day when I was crossing by ,she cheerfully called out to me and pointed to the window and kept insisting that the child at the window was bugging her.We were on the fourth floor of the window of the only building.When the time came to stop the lifesupport,we were doing the difficult job of explaining things to the husband and he was obviously finding it very difficult to come to a decision.Suddenly one of my senior colleagues explained that he did not have to carry the burden of having made the final decision because the final decision lay with the doctor.The fully grown man just started weeping,in confusion,in relief,in sadness and I am not sure what else it was.
Medical profession is a venerated place where we allow utter strangers into the most vulnerable and hurting parts of our lives.We are given access to the pain of our society.How we react to the hurt is very different.
In India when disaster strikes,there is a commotion....there is screaming,yelling everyone around the two kilometre radius comes to know something's happened.
Another thing that struck me this week was a handover I listened to.Someone was being handed over as being from a deeply religious family,christian was specified.I stopped short in whatever I was doing to listen with my mouth gaping,I think.My second reaction was a deep chuckle.
Was being deeply religious a sickness?I guess the kid was right in a certain sense.
My education continues in cultures so different from where my roots are and yet when one talks of roots it is not the place where I was born,places where I grew up,the places where I spend some significant part of my life which I sense is my root,it is actually among people I have grown up with,met along this journey at different times and different places whom God has ordained to influence my life ..so the journey continues till I am safely Home.
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