Must It Be Death?

Why being a doctor makes me take life personal

When kids die I hurt the most, cos was he/she born to die? to see the light and blink off to it, born to bring joy to the parents and friends only for death to forcefully take the joy away, born to define hope but die to erase hope.

@josh

Of the many instances I have seen death I vividly remember some. When I say see death I mean it. One not fine afternoon I was looking after a patient, a boy of around age 14. Weak he was but not muttering some words and giving a smile, I can't remember his name, but his diagnoses was leukemia. Full of drips, put on routine medication. What mattered to his mother was staying by his side, she felt it added life to him, she felt her presence was his strength. At that moment school didn't matter to him, friends whom he played with were just a memory, all he could want to see was his mother, the one who brought her into this world. Perhaps he thought of asking her why did she bring him to this world, why did she warn him, why did she tell him of something called pain, why she didn't tell him of diseases.

Alongside his bed his mother would attend to him. With all my patients I talk with them, asking of family, hobbies, best subject in school, political preferences just to always remind them I'm a friend, I'm treating them because I care. I have to mention that I have seem and it makes my heart bleed seeing doctors, nurses treating for money. Selling wellness to the highest bidder and selling none to the less potential. Some watch a patient die bc the nurse/doctor feels lazy to walk at the bedside to activate an oxygen mask. My heart aches when I see patients die out of negligence, my heart breaks when I see inhumanity and death under the same building.

Back to how I would see death, this particular beautiful soul with leukemia would have not normal days, adding constant pain to how normal his day couldn't be. Being o palliative the only drug he could receive is morphine for pain, no other medication because it was indicated he was at end stage life. That day I was on shift and he started acting up, being suddenly aggressive and talkative. To us we knew these were signs of an impending death known as cautious signs. He stood up wrestled for seconds then got returned to bed where he breathed his last.

I have questioned God a lot on why them? and who chooses who to live, is it Him? If yes why little children, a one week old baby dying. If it was Him these kind where do they get to go? Heaven ? why give us only to take? I've had moments where patients have died on my hands, the kind that feels like I just killed them. How do I sleep on such days? I don't, I make up explanations on my mind on why it couldn't be me, I backtrack every treatment they received to see if there was any mistake made, when I don’t find any preexisting one, I think maybe it's me maybe it's not me.

Away from death, I fail to understand why sickness visits the ambitious, why young mothers get cervical and breast cancers, single mothers with no one to look after their kids. Why kids scream in pediatric wards out of sickle cell pain, pain that is soo unbearable for a small child. You watch and you can do is cry when the help you can give is minimal. Have I said of the talks I have with patients who were abandoned by family and friends once they were realized to be sick.

I watch all these and I wonder is life for specific people ? do some get to audition for life and some who give up to booze, opium, fentanyl don't ? We are very quick to throw shades to the addict, quick to feel special, feel strong, feel wise. But are we? But what I realizes is that no one is immune to the claws of this life, the rich, the poor, the wise, the foolish. You might as well be whole bc the disease, the death is yet to knock at your door them being busy attending to those other doors in your neighborhood since this world is too small guaranteeing everyone as your neighbor. The Saint are not immune, the sinners are not, the saints only get to not get a premature form of death or disease but once your purpose is done, you're at the mercies of the world.

Stoic Philosophy

UnfoldingJasmin