Impact of death

Today, the second day in ward, a patient passed away. Should be a case of respiratory failure after long term chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases. The first patient since I started the rotation.

The family cried at that moment-- I think most relatives were with the patient when he left. They cried. But pretty strangely, I think that was pretty a relief--for the patient and for the family members. In fact, the patient's condition has been so bad that his family has been called to be with him since yesterday. The family members were obviously very depressed and stressed since yesterday. But more importantly, the patient was already on Bilevel ventilation for pretty long time-- Which essentially means that the obstruction was too severe for the patient that each breath takes a lot of effort. The patient became too weak that a machine has been connected to him to assist his breathing. And today, after uncountable number of miserable breathes, his respiratory muscle finally given up. The suffering ended. The patient has signed for no intubation which essentially offers no help other than to prolong the suffering. I think this is a relief to the patient and the family from their sufering.

But this comes back to a question-- is there such a thing called good death? This is difficult. Death is more a process, a process that leads us to the end of our life. To this special process, it would be inapprorpiate for by-standers to comment on this last journey for the traveller himself. But yet, what by-standers can do, and esp. what we, as medical professionals, can do, is to assist so that the patient may have a respectable, self-controlled death. This comes back to the goal of the medical sector: to cure, to safe life and to improves quality of life if possible. If not, we try to reduce patients' suffering and let them go with self-respect, self-control and self-independence.

What is death? What is death like? Will death be painful? How long will be the death? This sort of questions are always posed to medical doctors. But perhaps, death is more a process that no one can determine/explain except the traveller himself-- just like our lives, no one is a better narrator than the person him/herself.