Dead Man Living

While attending to Mr. Steven's oral care, I studied his face. Here is a relatively young man whose body is riddled with lines, needles, tubes of various sizes, all of which are trying to sustain his life. He looked defeated. He looked tired. But I still tried to offer him some positive words. I wished him happy birthday (he celebrated his 67th), and as I walked out of his room, I inquired about his prognosis. Of course, it looks grim...it is grim. The doctors are d/c'ing his comfort care this afternoon.

Out of curiosty I pulled his chart to find out what was ailing him:

COPD (cigarette smoker), bilateral pleural effusions, acute renal failure, chronic bilateral subdural hematomas, lung cancer, prostate cancer, and coagulopathy (facilitating hematomas?)...

Mr. Steven's in indeed a dead man living.

Fortunately, his family has agreed to let him go. I thought about Mr. Steven's and his family on the way home. Death, for most of us, is usually not a planned event. We are subject to its will, and are forced to deal with the chaos it leaves behind. But how does one deal with death when the day and the hour of its arrival are known? One thing is certain: Mr. Steven's is no longer suffering. Somehow that makes his death easier to deal with.