A relative of mine is currently hospitalized and I very honestly admit I haven't gone to visit her. No, it’s not because I am heartless. It's just that sometimes I find hospital visits very difficult to deal with. It becomes very painful especially when I see so many patients there who are diagnosed with incurable illnesses.
How do people deal with this? It pains me a lot when I see someone lying there in the bed with long transparent wires with sharp needles pierced and jutting out of their skin, the other end of which is connected to various odd contraptions which helps keep them alive. The patients are usually asleep from either the anesthetics given to help reduce the excruciating pain of the surgery or the drugs and injections. They sometimes even have the oxygen masks on their faces which is even more depressing. We can mostly hear them struggling to breathe with their chest rising and falling slowly. I remember watching someone's chest very closely once fearing that it would suddenly stop. I really feel depressed and helpless!
Everyone prefers them asleep but wish inwardly that they wake up and talk like everyone else. Visitors pretend to be cheerful around the patient, asking how they are feeling and telling them whats happening around them beyond the hospital walls. For a moment it seems like a happy scene. Even though the patient smiles and tries to talk to everyone, their smile does not reach their eyes. It is quite obvious that the illness has taken a toll on them and sapped them of the sparkle in their eyes and filled them with pain and torture. Everyone leaves promising to pray for them and return to visit them the next day and the patient also retreats to their dream land knowing they might or might not survive to see their dear ones again!
I have heard people say that the family should accept whatever happens. How cruel is that? Of course that is practical. But family is the only thing that matters at this stage.
One thing that I have learnt is that people are not invincible. Each new day is a blessing. As I already wrote in a previous blog post of mine, to tell a dear one how much they mean to you is important because you never know when they may be taken away.
