Last Days

I have been visiting my aunt who is admitted at the cancer ward for the past few weeks. She looks physically fine and is just waiting for her turn at the radiotherapy thingy. I never did like hospitals. Still don't. Especially the cancer ward.

I was at the hospital again yesterday. For the few times that I went to see my aunt, this old man was always seating at the lobby just before the main entrance into the wards. I saw him again yesterday and he greeted me with a smile as usual. He was always alone.

I gave him some oranges I bought earlier and sat next to him. Tells me he didn't have any family in the city and that he has cancer in his shoulder bones, which has now spread to his lungs. He has been staying there for the past two weeks and after the various tests, the doctors are in the process of deciding whether to amputate his arm and/or give him chemotherapy. But he is very sure he does not want to have his arm amputated and has decided to leave the hospital without anymore treatment.

I think the old man is wise in choosing to live the last days of his life in his own home where he is most comfortable and where he can be with his family and friends, instead of the hospital which is quite far away from his home. Tells me there is nothing much that medicine can do to prolong his life significantly. I agreed.

Why should he spend any more of his precious time left, going through a major operation and being ill from the chemotherapy, which may weaken him and prevent him from enjoying the last days of his life? I am glad that he has determined to go home against medical advice. I just hope that he will not have to suffer too much pain during the last days of his life.

I'll end this one with a quote from William Cullen Bryant...

So live that when thy summons comes to join the innumerable caravan,
which moves to that mysterious realm,
where each shall take his chamber in the silent halls of death,
then go not like the quarry-slave at night,
scourged to his dungeon,
but sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust,
approach thy grave like one that wraps the drapery or his couch about him,
and lies down to pleasant dreams...