Lessons in Dying

We have been very ignorant in assisting our loved one in the process of dying. Our last hospice- assisted death was uneventful. The hardest part was our loved one's decision to end the dialysis that was keeping her alive. The death took place over three days, and comfort was maintained throughout. We stood 24 hour vigil, which was manageable because of the short time. So basically we learned nothing.

We did not learn, for example, that death by self-induced starvation and dehydration could take many weeks. Nor that it could be very painful and dramatic. We did not learn that we needed to be vigilant 24/7 to make sure that the hospice organization did its job, and in turn that we needed to be organized in dividing duties among family members so that exhaustion and collapse did not occur.

We did not learn that a premier residence for the elderly memory impaired would assure us of its ability to care for the dying one, when in fact such reassurance was not warranted, nor that we would have to fire a doctor who refused adequate comfort care (or even that there was such a doctor).

We did not learn that the hallucinations, delusions, and struggles of the dying one would be harrowing to observe, or that even extremely weakened, the dying one could successfully crawl out of bed, or that restraint to prevent bodily harm (chemical or physical) is not allowed.

The entire family has labored together for many weeks now with our dying one. We are finally learning the really difficult lessons about death, even in a "right to die" state. We could decide that this was a random set of circumstances, but the other choice would be to search for the bigger lessons in this experience, and apply them to our lives as we remain behind when our loved one finally leaves us after many many days of struggle.