The decisions to stop treatment, or to, continue it, weighing the pros and cons of it, over, over, and over again, in our minds, and, we can only pray that in the end, we'd, made the, right choices by our loved ones.
Upon reading Marcie's "Difficult Choice" on August 25th, I was moved, this hard-to-master lesson of life, is, harder to solve than the, mathematical, equations.
I was forty-two on the year, thought of how at age forty-two, my father caught me, who let out the very first cries of my life, and how time flew quickly by, turned all our hairs white, made him hunched in the back, and, eroded away, his aging, skins. I'd squatted down, helplessly, in the hallways of the hospital, with my arms around my knees, I'd, broken down and cried. The sun still radiant outside, while my world had, crumbled down, no longer, is it, a full-circle again.
After the marrow was extracted, the biopsies on his liver done, I'd, pushed him back to his ward. "Ouch!" that was the only word he'd, mumbled aloud after he came to, following that, he'd, drifted into that cycle of, never-ending, eternal, waking and sleeping.
The eyes behind the glasses, with that genuineness about it, said, "sir is too elderly and too weakened in physical strengths, I'm afraid, that he won't able to get through the chemotherapy or the surgeries, you and your families must make up your minds, don't leave the regrets for tomorrow, the patients are in pain, the families, in even more, pain." The young resident stated these words, that, made my heart twisted up even tighter, can it, not be, a "multiple choice" question?
Three years ago, my eldest uncle fell seriously ill, my older cousins couldn't let him go, his life was, spared, but, he was kept alive, with all those, tubes going in and out of his body, it'd, made the families, relatives, and friends wondered, can we, tie him down with love, to save his body, because we don't want him to go? Then, two months later, he'd gone, and, my older cousin kneeled down in front of the altar, and cried like hell, and blamed himself for making the wrong decisions to save his own father then, that he shouldn't have, put his own father through those two more months' worth of, trials in the body.
AS my younger brother heard the surgeon's statements, he'd exclaimed aloud, "of course, SAVE him!" "my father's a military man, he would NOT want to live on like this, I want to save him too, but, as his daughter, I know I can't be, so, selfish", I'd, finally, got those, words out, and after that, my heart had a hole in it. My youngest sister cried, shook her head, and waved her hands no too, she was, my father's, favorite, youngest child, it's, simply, too difficult, for her, to voice her thought on the matter.
I'd, pushed that hospital bed, with all his belongings, took him to the hospice ward. It is, very hard to describe what it's like in there, there are the hopes and expectations of getting out one day on all the other, floors, while here, the patients are, walking, a step closer to death by the day, but it's, not just that.
As we entered into the hospice, my crying, stopped, the sorrows are, all over the places, but my father looked, more at peace, and, as he woke, he'd said, apologetically to me, "it'd been trying on you". my foolish dad, can you, breathe, a bit longer, so, your children can, hold you in their arms, longer, so I can, be a daughter, with a father still?
After a full month in the hospice, I took dad home. In the company of his children and grandchildren, without those tubes going in and out of his body that made his life even harder, he'd gained, an, extra month, two days after Father's Day, he'd selected to, fall, into, that eternal, sleep, and thus, our, scents of, missing him, started, rooting downward.
So this would be, one of the, hardest decisions that someone is forced to make, to save the loved ones or to just, let them go, I mean, there's, a lot to, consider in the matter, are you, willing to, try your loved ones longer, just so you can have them with you longer, or, would you be willing to, say your, goodbyes to them, and, leaving, no love unsaid, and, just, let them go?
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