Death can wait...

From great pain and despair can rise hope, if the cause is worth fighting for

When his parents found out, they burst into tears and pleaded with him to fight for them, if not for himself. They reasoned that as long as he was alive there was hope and as long as there was hope, there was a future. And miracles were known to happen! The family just had to pray harder. For his deeply religious family, even to think of ending life was sin.

On the morning of his departure, his condition became worse and he was readmitted into hospital. All his well laid plans were outwitted by the wretched disease.

As he lay in hospital, once again hooked to tubes and given additional doses of morphine, he regretted his decision to delay his departure. He must have mumbled aloud, for the patient in the bed next to him spoke in return.

“I too had planned it and even fought to legalise it, but backed out. Yes I am suffering, maybe just as much as you, maybe more, but I had to take the decision that was right for me,” he said.

By RANI jHALA

The prognosis was not good. There was still no cure and no medication to arrest the progress of the disease. The only things that the medical world could now offer were relief from pain and patient support. But even as the assurance was being given, Mark knew that the time was not far when neither of these would be enough. He was witnessing his body suffering its biggest defeat, and did not have a single defensive move to offer in return.

Just last year, he had been nominated his company’s ‘Young Entrepreneur of the Year’, with a bright future before him and the promise of material success.

Nine months later, as he lay looking at the retreating figure of the nurse, he wondered at the irony of fate. The day he had acknowledged his wonderful beginning, a routine blood test proclaimed his end. A rare form of cancer that simply had no cure! He had tried everything, from alternative treatment to herbal therapy. On his mother’s request he even saw a faith healer but the cancer progressed at an alarming rate and spread to different parts of his body, until all he felt was excruciating pain from one extremity to another. And this was just the beginning. Every book he read, gave the same warning that it would only get worse.

Now he was permanently on morphine. His parents had left their jobs and were full-time carers. His brother took on the medical expenditure. And his nurse came in more frequently to administer the painkillers. Even a trip to the bathroom in a wheelchair, was now unbearable. With no end to the suffering, he remained in perpetual dread of the future.

And then one day as he lay watching TV, he saw a debate about euthanasia. He knew about it, for the same arguments had raged in his family when he was a child. His grandfather had begged for it as he lay bedridden after a car accident. It had been denied to him by the medical profession. His family too, had opposed the idea on religious grounds. Even he, a seven-year-old child had thought of his grandfather as a coward for wanting to escape and worse, for wanting to commit a sin.

Yet now, as he lay writhing in pain, he understood the need his grandfather had felt to escape. He was not running away from life; he simply wanted release from the ache. He understood the hopelessness a person feels at being given no promise of recovery, only an assurity that they would try and delay death. He remembered how his grandfather was forced to endure painful procedures that were never guaranteed to save him. He also remembered pleading with the doctor, “I love my Grandpa too much. Don’t let him die.”

Now it was his turn and he was fighting the same battle. When he had first broached the subject with his doctor, he was told it was illegal. Mark wanted to argue that the abuse the elderly suffered at hospitals and nursing homes was a worse crime. He wanted to shout that being at someone else’s mercy and whim, was a worse situation. He wanted to point out that the actions taken by some medical staff against vulnerable patients were worse crimes. And he wanted to yell – feel my pain, live my terror and then tell me what is legal! But he did none of these; instead he began searching the internet to find the countries where euthanasia was legal.

He did not have the heart to tell them that he was all out of prayers and that he was all out of hope. The medical profession had ended that for him, and the test reports had verified it. All that fate now allowed him, was a wish for release. Just as he had kept silent with his doctor, he did not argue with his family either. Instead he contacted the doctors overseas.

They asked for all his medical reports and he scanned them across. Only when they were satisfied that hope was nonexistent, did they finalise arrangements.

Strangely, he felt no fear. The date would bring with it his independence. It would end his suffering. It would release his family of the burden his sickness had inflicted on them. He was truly at peace and more importantly, he was ready to go.

The day he told his family, they were heartbroken. On every level a wrong was happening and they wanted to stop it, but he ended their opposition with just three questions. “Do you hate me so much that you wish this suffering on me? Do you not love me enough to help me escape this hell? I have a way out of this pain now. Do you not want me to walk the easier path?” he had asked. His mother had fled the room. His father had merely looked at him, and then held him as he offered his acceptance.

“Why did you give up on your fight?” Mark asked.

“Because there are no laws that would help remove the moral obligation and guilt that our loved ones would face. I could have left, but what would I have left them with? The moment I exited my life, I would have destroyed theirs. Did I have the right to do that? And there are no laws in place to safeguard those that may be forced to leave by unscrupulous family who want their inheritance, by medical organisations who want to end the expenditure, or against genuine mistakes,” was the reply.

Mark got help in sending an email to cancel all arrangements. He realised that he now had two battles to take on. The first would be against the cancer and the second against the legal department. He wanted to fight for amendments so that no one ever need ask if euthanasia was murder or mercy killing. No one would need to judge those who execute it or those that opt for it.

But most of all, he would ensure that euthanasia, which was such a powerful weapon against life, was safeguarded from being abused. Only when he had found the way to protect those that plan to exit the world and those they leave behind, would he think of escaping this world. Even cancer would have to wait, for he had found the will to fight!