Responsibility you don't want to take.

Written by Sandra on September 26, 2011

Everyone of us is, at one point in their lives, faced with the fact that they have to take responsibility for something. May it be the small goldfish your parents gave you when you were little just to see how well you'd be doing; the responsibility you have to take at school to study for all your tests in order to become something great when you grow up; the responsibility of getting back home safe and sound when you're old enough to stay out late; or the responsibility of investing your money wisely once you've dared to take the big step of moving out of your parents' house. See, the pathway of life is plastered with responsibilities.

But what happens when you can't take any responsibility for yourself anymore? Or, even worse, what happens when you're the one that's being handed over the responsibility for someone else? For him and his life? That happens to me often when I'm at work. We have many patients that are neither able to talk nor respond in any kind of way, people that don't have any relatives left to take care and make decisions for them, people that seem to not even live in this world anymore, at least not with their minds and souls... That's when the doctors and nurses take over.

But, honestly, I personally wouldn't want any stranger to make decisions for me that are actually concerning my life. But we still do it. Every day. There are life-support machines being turned off regularly - and that is okay. But only if you know for sure that this is what that person would have wanted. However, how can you ever be sure when there's no one that tells you so? You can only do whatever your gut feeling and heart tell you. And so we go and turn off the life-supporting machine of someone that's been in a coma for what we consider to be way too long, someone that hasn't responded to any kind of treatment at all, someone that hasn't given any sign of life ever since... Because we think it's right, and because we are assured it's exactly what that person would have told us to do, too.

The reason why I'm writing this blog is just to get something off my mind that has been weighing heavily on me for a couple of weeks now... Back then we had a patient that was taken to hospital because of chronic renal failure and a chronic bronchitis that caused him to have viscous mucus in his bronchial tubes, throat and oral cavity. He was bedridden, couldn't talk (neither with his voice nor body language) and was always only staring into that one corner of the room, no matter what happened around him. Some nurses told me he couldn't hear us and that he wouldn't even realize what we did in his room. But I'm sure he did notice everything everyone of us did. He just couldn't be bothered. And I believe he was already seeing the entrance to that other world which he would cross over to later on, or maybe he saw someone that passed away long before, or maybe just an angel awaiting him. Unfortunately I'll never know what was up there.

Anyway, because of all that mucus we had to use a suction apparatus to clear at least a little part of his respiratory tract, which would make it easier for him to breathe. He was categorized as “pre-final” which means he was already expected to die anytime soon. Well, on one day I just wanted to look after him and see how he was doing, so I went into his room and took some minutes out of my busy schedule to just stay beside his bed and stroke his cheek. I thought to myself that this was a ridiculous amount of mucus in his mouth, but forgot about it again when another nurse called me for help. So I left. And he must have died just about fifteen minutes later...

When I went to look after him again I found him lying there with pale skin, a motionless thorax and foam around his mouth. He suffocated. And while giving him a wash one last time (you defecate when you die, since your whole body and muscles relax) I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that he most likely had to die a painful death. Also I couldn't stop blaming myself for it, because I should have drained some of the mucus, but I didn't... I guess that's what you call passive euthanasia. Today I know that he didn't have to die, he was rather allowed to. I've realized that he must have been incredibly relieved when he felt that this was it. And I know that even if I had used that suction apparatus, he would have passed another day.

One further comment on that topic I wanna leave you with is: The odd (and yet sort of calming) thing is that I felt him standing right next to me while I was cleaning his already cold body. And I know he walked alongside the bed when bringing his body to the morgue. He was there watching every of my steps. And he watched me crying. See, from numerous of stories, that people who had near-death experiences told me, I know that life is not over with death.