On the first day of this year my father had a fall. His knees just buckled. My parents live in the United States, so Mum dialled 911 for the emergency services. The fire brigade arrived and took Dad to a hospital down the road.
When I heard what happened, I was filled with foreboding. My parents had reached a point in their lives when they could no longer cope on their own. There’s no shame in this, but both are stubborn and fiercely proud. Both had resisted help. They didn’t want anyone from Visiting Angels. Then, after no more than a few sessions, they sent away the home helper from Right at Home I had spent weeks trying to secure. ‘We gave it a go and it didn’t work,’ announced my mother.
Finally, it seemed to me the day of reckoning had come. And so it has turned out.
It’s extraordinary how tough growing old still is. Surely, in this era of precision technology, we should have figured out ways to make life more twilight-friendly?
The hospital kept Dad overnight for observation. He grumbled the whole time, insisting he did not need to be ‘observed’. He’s of a generation that never asks for help. He’s also a man who thinks he knows best; he won’t listen. For years, he walked with a limp. Among the papers stuffed into a side drawer, we found referrals for physiotherapy. Dad had not gone for physiotherapy, but he hoarded the slips as if they were trophies.
Two weeks later my father’s legs gave way again. The emergency services were called, he was transported to the same hospital and the cycle was repeated, only, this time, the doctors refused to release him without extensive tests.
The test results shocked us: they indicated double kidney failure. The problem wasn’t Dad’s kidneys at all; the problem was dehydration – Dad had stopped drinking water and was taking only Coca Cola. His primary physician concluded that my father had checked out mentally.
Looking back, I realise now that Dad gave up on life years ago. Retirement had been a delight at first, but without a job, my father lost his purpose. We all need a sense of purpose, however tenuous.
Dad never returned to the house in which he had lived for twenty six years. He was heart-broken about this, but he has too many medical conditions to make living in his own home an option. For the past decade, he and my mother have operated in the ‘I’m so old now, why bother?’ mode. They would go to their primary physician for regular check-ups and lab work, but if tests showed abnormalities requiring further investigation, both adamantly refused any additional diagnostics.
We now live with the consequences of those decisions. And we are seeing how cruel life can be: my father’s mind remains quite sharp, albeit with bouts of confusion, but he feels stuck as he’s bed-bound, no longer able to walk or do much for himself; my mother, on the other hand, has full use of her limbs but often can’t remember what she was thinking mere minutes before.
Both are frustrated and unhappy, my father especially so. This isn’t living, he screams. He’s screaming a lot these days. Dad is ready to go. He wants to die, only, his body won’t let him. And I cannot, in good conscience, do anything to accelerate his demise. Even if euthanasia were available, I would find it hard, as the person holding power-of-attorney over crucial healthcare decisions, to actively send my father to his death.
So we stumble on, down a path that we know is leading to the end. This is uncharted territory: none of us has been taught how to plan for that excruciating period before our final breath. The hours appear long and drawn out. Wills and funeral plans we know how to make; the UK government’s website even has a section dedicated to wills (as does the US government’s website). But on this, this struggle to die, there are no pearls of wisdom.
Inevitably, I question what I should and shouldn’t do. There isn’t a right answer or a wrong answer – nor do I believe a directive exists that could possibly cover the many grey areas. I have no wish to prolong my father’s suffering; at the same time, I wouldn’t forgive myself if we didn’t make sure that he’s as comfortable as we can possibly make him. But by making him more comfortable, I’m prolonging his life and therefore, to some extent, also prolonging want he regards as his suffering. I know this, but I have to do what I think is right.
I’m doing my very best – and that’s the most anyone could ask.
Window into Other Worlds 