Morbid Thoughts
Death My Dad's dad died when my dad was a teenager. He was older than my grandmother, but not by a huge amount. My Mother's mother passed away about a month ago. She was in a lot of pain, her quality of life was pretty poor, and she was ready to die [she called her pastor, and told him so]. My dad's mother and aunt died several years ago. One had alzheimer's but physically was doing pretty well, one was physically gone but mentally ok. They were living together, and after one died the other died quite quickly. Growing up, one classmate died of cancer [I think a lymphoma]. I remember him as quiet and have almost no clear memories of him. One classmate lost it and killed his parents. A couple years later I talked to someone who claimed information that made it even more tragic. One classmate, who was a pretty close friend in middle school, died in the last year. This is projection, but I have to wonder if he was gay and died of AIDS. In college, one of my fraternity brothers lost his grandfather[I think], who had essentially raised him. I remember sitting on a couch in the chapter room, being completely unable to think of something helpful to say. Throughout my medical career I have had patients die. Probably the one that had the biggest effect on me happened during my internship, during a family medicine inpatient rotation. Earlier in the month this woman had come into the hospital, had been treated, and released. On the last day of the rotation she came in, comatose, needing a machine to breathe [I think]. I ended up staying the night in the ICU, alone except for the nurses, waiting for this woman's heart to stop so I could call a code. That was a long night. It didn't happen, and we declared her brain dead the next day and took her off the respirator. I remember her granddaughter crying; I remember her son calmly [in a controlled manner?] agreeing with what happened. I treated one woman whose husband died. She tried valiantly to hang onto the house in which they lived. She eventually had to sell. After at least 2 years, she was started to move on. During residency, one of the fellow's 2 year old daughter developed a rare brain cancer, and eventually died. He now has a son. I remember him telling a medical student how he bawled when he held his daughter in his arms. It was somewhat sarcastic - she had made some disparaging remark about someone crying. The point of all of this, if there is one, is that I have a friend, who I think had a tragedy in his life a year or more ago, and I don't know how to confirm it or even if I should. I don't know what it is to lose a close relative, although I have been around people who have. I guess I should offer my sympathy to that person if what I think happened is true.
- posted by owlish @ 6/07/2004 06:30:00 AM