After the loss of Dad, I've been reflecting on Life and Death. A decision that was taken in Dad's case was to accept that his illness was terminal and to focus on the quality of life.
This meant that having Dad at home, the place he felt most comfortable. And all of his kids and grand-kids spending time with him. This meant that Dad's final 6 weeks were as happy as the rest of his life. Surrounded by and spending time with the people who he loved and who loved him.
During this time a lot of his friends and family visited him and everyone got to spend quality time with him.
Several person, including some close family were advocating trying to leverage the power of modern medicine and explore treatment possibilities in India and abroad. However the doctors including Ivy were clear that in Dad's case the cancer was terminal.
Unfortunately, not everyone is so lucky. And most people go about extending life of their loved ones leading to an unacceptable quality of life for the patient. While it may be argued that the job of medicine and loved ones is to extend life to the extent possible, I disagree.
I believe that the choice of when and how much medicine should intervene should be left to the individual. And I for one would prefer that for me, medicine not intervene if the end result is likely to be the same and the intervention is only going to add a small slice of time at the price of major side effects.
My brother Don, sent an article on the subject, which has tackled this sensitive issue in a beautiful and brilliant manner.
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