I thought it was weird when I saw my elderly neighbour at the lift. It was the first time I saw her without her husband. I asked where she was going, and she replied "Uncle is in hospital". Sigh. I hope everything will be fine. Didn't like the worried look in her eyes. I kinda feel like visiting him but that'll be weird. I guess I'll just pray for him later in church.
complain.
Anyway, here's a lil story that my doctor cousin in Canada shared with me:
Something terrible happened on Tuesday when I was on call. I got called to see an elderly gentleman who came in with a several week history of just not feeling right, feeling weak, not eating, etc. They doctor that called me thought maybe he had pneumonia. He was the main caregiver for his wife with Alzheimer's dementia and for his handicapped son.
When I went to see him I was looking through his chart and saw that for the past year he had suffered from depression and was having chronic problems of not eating and low energy. He also had a very long history of heart disease, but when I was looking at all his vital signs he was very stable and didn't even need oxygen. I went in to talk to him and his poor wife was hovering at his bedside and kept plumping up his pillows.
From the emergency doctor I had heard that they had someone else living with them at home but his wife didn't get along with her so she was going to be sleeping in a chair at his bedside while he was in hospital. It was all quite pathetic. Anyway, I walked into the room and right away he asked me if he was going to die that night. I didn't know this, but apparently he had been asking the emergency doctor the same thing all night. Both of us assured him that he was very stable and that he wasn't going to die. I talked to him for about 10 minutes and he kept repeating and repeating that he was so tired and just wanted to sleep, and kept asking if he was going to die.
Finally I started examining him and he kept saying how tired he was. As my last step, I asked him to sit up so I could listen to his lungs. He said, "Oooh...I'm so tired, I just want to die." I assured him that it was the last thing I would get him to do and then he could rest. So his wife and I helped support him to sit up, but as soon as he sat up and I put my stethoscope on his back he collapsed backward. I thought maybe he was too weak to stay sitting, but then I looked at him and his eyes had rolled back into his head. His heart rate was suddenly very low and although we tried to resuscitate him right away in less than a minute he went into cardiac arrest and died. It was so shocking.
Everyone went over the scenario again and again and can't figure out what happened unless he just suddenly had a massive heart attack and died or something. But basically, he said "I just want to die." Then I sat him up and he died, right in front of my eyes and in my arms. It was very sad. His wife couldn't even comprehend what was going on. When he lost consciousness his eyes were still half open and she thought he was awake. So when I was trying to wake him up she thought he was just confused and kept saying to him "You know this doctor, right? She was just talking to you." I tried to explain that he was unconscious, but she couldn't understand. Then she said to him, "Can you tell me who Graham is?" Then she turned to me and said confidently, "Graham's our son. He'll know who Graham is." And everything was happening at once and at that point I was the only person in the room and I was trying to resuscitate him so I couldn't explain to her that he wasn't awake.
Then it was very pathetic later. Even after he passed away she still was hovering and hovering around his bed and I still don't know if she understood that he was gone. It's very strange. You hear this again and again: lots of time patients just somehow know when they're going to die and if someone says to you "I'm going to die tonight", there's actually a good chance that they will.
