Trigger warning for medically assisted death
I learned something today. As a Canadian I'm incredibly lucky that we have access to MAID (medical assistance in dying). Not to say it doesn't have it's issues, which it does and I have no problem being very loud about those issues, but when you have a family member suffering from terminal cancer and they've exhausted all possible treatments that have a chance if prolonging their life those issues don't really come into play. That's not what I learned by the way, just a little bit of background.
What I learned is that gathering to be with your loved one while they die is very similar to a funeral. In fact, for me at least, it's more effective than a funeral.
Funerals are supposed to be a way to allow people to say goodbye to someone who has died, to get closure. More often than not there wasn't a chance to do that before the person died. It allows you to get together and remember the person and grieve, and for a lot of people that works really well. It's never really helped me much though. Between my ADHD "Now" and "Not Now" time blindness and object stasis (it's not really onject impermanence bit that's a discussion for another time), and my belief that there is no after life, we just.. end, a funeral doesn't provide me any of that closure it seems to for most people. The only thing a funeral does is cause me pain because I'm overwhelmed by seeing so many people emotionally hurting.
But gathering as a family today with my mom, getting to say goodbye to her and have her say goodbye to us, having the support of other people who loved her as much as I did while we watched her fall asleep and then stop breathing, and then going back to the house with everyone to eat and help each other co-regulate? That was as much closure as I think my weirdly wired brain is ever going to be able to get.
I don't have much experience with death. The only two people in my life who have died were very old (80+), so I didn't know how I would handle being there today. I thought it might be too hard, seeing everyone be so sad. I wasn't worried about my own grief, I long ago accepted this outcome and I'm very happy she had the option to die with dignity and go out on her own terms, but I was worried about how I'd cope with other people's grief.
It wasn't hard though, it was quite the opposite. It was one of the easiest things I've ever done. I think a large part of that was that no one was uncomfortable seeing other people upset (like they usually are), and we were all really happy for her and grateful so there was no resentment or denial, just sadness and relief.
Actually I take that back. Lance was very distressed to see so many people upset and not be able to fix it. I had him in his vest for the first time in years (mom was in the hospital and I didn't want to leave Lance in the car case while I could have managed without him it was so much easier with him there. I took a couple of decompression breaks and we went and visited some of the other patients which always makes me happy).
But other than Lance no one else was uncomfortable and it was really just an incredibly cathartic experience and I'm really glad I chose to go (mom gave us the option. She said she'd like us there but it was okay if we didn't want to be). I knew I'd regret it down the line if I didn't go, and that instinct was spot on.
I'm sure that not everyone will find the experience as positive and healing as I did, but if you ever find yourself in the position to choose whether or not to be there with someone as they die and you're one the fence about it I hope this helps you make a more informed choice, whichever option ends up being the best one for you.
For me, this experience granted me a peace above and beyond my acceptance of her death that I wasn't expecting, and I'm really grateful for that. If I was a spiritual person I'd even say I was blessed.
I love you so much mom. You fought so hard and I'm so glad that your last moments got to be peaceful ones.
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wait, Derin how did your leaving make the hospital shut down?
I used to work as a live-in nanny for a pediatrician.
Now, the thing about hospitals in my country is that they are massively understaffed and massively underfunded. This is especially true outside the major cities. The staff are worked to the bone and receive little to no help in things like finding accommodation or childcare, making working in rural areas a very uninviting prospect; staff come out here, get lumped with the work of three people (because there's nobody else to do it), burn out under the workload and leave, meaning that those remaining have even more work because that person is gone. It's unsustainable and the medical staff are doing their best to sustain it, because people die if they don't, so to the higher-ups it looks like everything's getting done and therefore everything is fine.
My friend (and boss) worked one week on, one week off, swapping out with another pediatrician. This was necessary because it would not be physically possible for one person to handle the workload for longer periods of time. The one single pediatrician had to hold up the entire pediatrics ward, which was not only the only public hospital pediatrics ward in our town, but also the one that served all the towns around us for a few hours' drive in all directions. I regularly saw her go to work sick, aching, tired, or with a debilitating 'I can barely make words or see' level migraine, because if she took a day off, twenty children didn't get healthcare that day, and some of these kids' appointments were scheduled weeks in advance. She'd work long hours in the day and then be called in a couple of times overnight for an hour or two at a time (she was on-call at night too, because somebody had to be), and then go in the next day. Sometimes she would be forced to take a day off because she physically could not stay awake for longer than a few minutes at a time, meaning she couldn't drive to work.
Cue my niece's second birthday coming up in Melbourne. I'd been working for her for about 3 years, and she (and the hospital) had plenty of advance warning that I (and therefore she) needed one (1) Friday off. That's fine, we'll find someone to work that Friday, the hospital said. Right up until the last week where they're like "oh, we can't find a replacement; you can come in, can't you?"
No, she tells them; I don't have anyone to watch my kid that day.
Oh, surely you can hire a babysitter for this one day, they say. Think of the children! We really really need you to work that day. I know we said it'd be fine but we need you now, there's no one else to do it.
There are no other babysitters, she told them. Unless you can find one?
That's not our responsibility, they said.
But I'm not changing my plans, she's got plans by now as well, the hospital knew about this one day weeks in advance, and with absolutely no reserve staff they're forced to reschedule all pediatrics appointments for that Friday. Not a huge deal, it happens on the 'physically too overworked to get out of bed' days too. I go to Melbourne, she goes back to her home in Adelaide for her recovery week, all should be on track.
My niece gives me Covid.
This was way back in the first wave of the pandemic, and there were no Covid vaccines yet. The rules were isolate, mask up, hope. I had Covid in the house, and it would've been madness for my friend and her toddler to come back into the Covid house instead of staying in Adelaide. There was absolutely no way that a pediatrician could live with someone in quarantine due to Covid and go to work in the hospital with sick children every day. And no support existed for finding another babysitter, or temporary accommodation, so the hospital was down a pediatrician.
The other pediatrician wasn't available to do a three-week stint. They were also trapped in Adelaide on their well-earned week off.
Meaning that the only major pediatrics ward within a several-hour radius had no pediatricians. They had to shut down and send all urgent cases to Adelaide for the week. To the complete absence of surprise of any of the doctors or nurses; of course this would happen, this was bound to happen, it presumably keeps happening. But probably to the surprise of the higher-ups. After all, the hospital was doing fine, right? Of course all the staff were complaining of overwork and a lack of resources in every meeting, but they could always be fobbed off with the promise of more help sometime in the future; the work was mostly getting done, so the issue couldn't be too urgent.
It's not like some nanny who doesn't even work for the hospital could go out of town for a weekend for the first time in three years, and get the only public pediatrics ward in the area shut down for a week.
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imagine youre a teenager and one day you decide to steal a car because it looks fast and sleek and you want to travel on the road. so you go on a trip in your stolen car and you love it so much that you dedicate your life to the road. you spend your years travelling, visiting new places and picking up hitchhikers, all in the same car you stole, which at this point has become old and run down and needs refurbishing every now and then, but you never replace it because you live in this car now and it's your home. at one point your actual house was demolished and your family members are dead. the people you've hooked up with in your car have broken up with you and gone away. youve changed many times as a person, but your shitty car has stayed the same, the one constant in your hectic life. it's the last one of its model after they stopped manifacturing it: that's how old it is. then one day, your car suddenly breaks down in the middle of the road. you go out to get help and find a lady who weirdly knows all about you. she knows all the places youve been to and the people youve gone there with. as you talk with her more, you begin to realize that, somehow, the soul of your car—the one that's sitting broken outside—has transferred into the body of a human woman. your car is alive and now speaking to you, and she remembers all the moments you two have spent together, every word youve told her when you thought you were alone, every desire and complaint youve expressed to her in the middle of the night. your car is speaking to you, and she tells you that however much you love her, she loves you equally back. that you never really stole her all those years ago because she wanted to travel with you, and she wouldn't change you for anyone else in the world. you speak with your living human car, and you realize that, hey, she's kind of funny actually, and you might be a little bit in love with her, and she might be a little bit in love with you. but the desert you're stuck in is also sentient and evil, so your human car dies in your arms in order for her soul to transfer back into the machine and drive you away. so now you're back on the road with your car the same as always, except now you know she's sentient and maybe has feelings for you, so you sometimes let go of the wheel and let her take you wherever she wants. that's what happened between the doctor and the tardis in that one episode
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