Death
My beloved paternal grandmother passed away today.
I couldn't go home..
She died in her daughter's arm (my aunt), surrounded by all family member. It was quick, painless and peaceful. I thought it might been a pulmonary embolism or a massive myocardial infarction. She has been unwell for quite some time, hence it doesn't exactly come as surprise. But it is sudden, and the whole of my family had to left the wedding on my maternal family side, travelling from Tanjung Karang to Batu Pahat.
It gives me some sort of peace to know my grandmother died in a relatively quick painless and comfortable death.
I am a bit morbid; to me personally, having seen many deaths in my career, a "comfortable" and dignified death is very important. Seeing some patients "decaying" in front of your eyes is not very nice.
I remember seeing this end-stage myeloma patient, diseases recurred despite bone marrow transplant, completely blood and platelet transfusion dependant, need constant almost daily treatment for hyperkalaemia and hypercalcaemia. This went on for almost a month. He slowly deteriorating in front of our eyes. We finally have to confront the family with the awful truth that he is going to die (either from bleeding to death or arrhythmias) and we literally buying time with all these transfusions (he need it every 2-3 days, the whole bone marrow are populated by myeloma cells). He is never going to leave hospital if we are going to continue to do this. (Even worse, the disease recurs whilst he is on chemotherapy.)...It was hard; this poor man already exhausted and you can clearly see he wanted rest, and the children were crying wanting him to continue whilst they search for treatment in America, eventhough deep down I have a feeling they knew his disease is not salvage-able.
I couldn't go home..
She died in her daughter's arm (my aunt), surrounded by all family member. It was quick, painless and peaceful. I thought it might been a pulmonary embolism or a massive myocardial infarction. She has been unwell for quite some time, hence it doesn't exactly come as surprise. But it is sudden, and the whole of my family had to left the wedding on my maternal family side, travelling from Tanjung Karang to Batu Pahat.
It gives me some sort of peace to know my grandmother died in a relatively quick painless and comfortable death.
I am a bit morbid; to me personally, having seen many deaths in my career, a "comfortable" and dignified death is very important. Seeing some patients "decaying" in front of your eyes is not very nice.
I remember seeing this end-stage myeloma patient, diseases recurred despite bone marrow transplant, completely blood and platelet transfusion dependant, need constant almost daily treatment for hyperkalaemia and hypercalcaemia. This went on for almost a month. He slowly deteriorating in front of our eyes. We finally have to confront the family with the awful truth that he is going to die (either from bleeding to death or arrhythmias) and we literally buying time with all these transfusions (he need it every 2-3 days, the whole bone marrow are populated by myeloma cells). He is never going to leave hospital if we are going to continue to do this. (Even worse, the disease recurs whilst he is on chemotherapy.)...It was hard; this poor man already exhausted and you can clearly see he wanted rest, and the children were crying wanting him to continue whilst they search for treatment in America, eventhough deep down I have a feeling they knew his disease is not salvage-able.
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