Intensive Care Unit – where life and death shake hands
Life is short, this is the one thing I have truly understood after this visit. I felt like I was staring at someone who was staring death in the face. My grandmother could not talk, she had at least 5 tubes attached to various parts of her body, and could only do all she could to communicate through writing words on a piece of scrap paper. I did all I could to fight back tears when all the nurses already knew who I was when I went into the Intensive Care Unit for the first time:
“Oh, it’s 4-1-11’s granddaughter right? From Cambridge right? Hehe, no need to introduce yourself, your grandmother already told us all!” I saw that she had written that I would be visiting on that sheet of paper in weak, faint handwriting. She is so frail, barely able to hold that pen, constantly in pain despite the continuous stream of painkillers and anaesthetic that numbs her senses yet makes her feel so ill. My chest physically pains at the thought of the effort she had to exert to get those words on that sheet. Tears spring to my eyes as I recollect the look on her eyes as she laboriously turned her head towards me as I stepped up beside the bedside table.
“She’s been waiting for you, she kept asking us the time” her nurse added as she walked past me, she leaned in and quietly added:
“Say something encouraging, your grandma needs support…”
I looked down at a grandma I could barely recognise anymore, she was bloated and tears were running down her eyes. I choked, panicking, unable to think of anything to say.
“Wipe her tears for her”, I heard my mother behind me.
My hands shook as I reached for the tissue and gently soaked up her tears, “erm….grandma….you will get better”
She stared up at me, I felt like the most useless and stupid person in the world, what kind of ridiculous, feeble attempt at encouragement was that?! What could I do to help? She was in so much pain. The only thought running through my head was…don’t cry, please, don’t cry, this is not what she needs right now. She needs positive people around her, she will get better, she WILL!
I could feel the chills down my spine as I caught a glimpse of the other things she had written on that piece of paper, “prefer death”, “too painful”…
It made me think long and hard about the morality of euthanasia, I don’t think you can call her irrational, I don’t think you can refute that she is capable of making decisions, but her requests for an end to her pain were much ignored, responded to with a “don’t think like that, you will get better, it’s not cancer, all of the pain you are going through at the moment is worth it…”
I didn’t know what to think, my grandma is notoriously unable to stomach any kind of physical pain, despite, or maybe exactly because she is a doctor herself. I wasn’t there at the time but previously, when she had still been able to express herself in the ambulance, she had told the lady accompanying her:
“I am not afraid of death, but I am afraid of pain, don’t let them put tubes and machines on me, keeping me artificially alive…” I looked at her sadly, isn’t this exactly what she did not want…?
You know those one-time use dentists’ gloves? You know how they would puff up if you filled it with water (or air), and resemble a large ball with 5 protruding stubs? Well, that is pretty much what her hands resembled. Panicking, I asked the doctor why she was so bloated, she sighed and pointed at the numerous drips and fluids feeding into her, shaking her head:
“You can’t help age, when you get into your 80s, your body is just not what it used to be”.
She started off with only a stomach ulcer, but the mass bleeding from that one ulcer has sent her body completely off-balance, her immune system is weak, any tiny infection now is fatal. Her blood count is low and she constantly needs transfusion, there is still minor internal bleeding, together with the various drips is causing her body to bloat, her bloating stomach is pushing against her lung, which is stopping the doctors from being able to remove the breathing apparatus. The tube down her windpipe is causing her immense discomfort and pain, leading to constant use of painkillers and anaesthetic, the anaesthetic is preventing her recovery, which requires her to practice breathing on her own, but when the sedatives are removed, she is in immense pain and her mood takes a turn for the worst…
She has been in ICU for nearly a month now and hopes of recovery look slimmer and slimmer. It’s heartbreaking to watch this woman, my grandma, slowly fading, a once energetic woman whose voice could once shake the room, now relying on a plethora of medical equipment and barely able to open her eyes.
I think back only a few months, when her presence irritated me, and her watchful stare made me want to hide from her – so I did. I remember thinking that if one day, she were to become frail and ill, I would regret the way I treated her, well that day came far sooner than I could ever imagine.
