Intensive care II

Spoke to mum again. It was almost 2am Taiwan time. She just returned home from the hospital. Dad's condition has stabilised, and the doctors told my mum to go home and rest.

Calling me was the first thing that mum did. She told me more of what happened. She was faced with a critical decision, but she could not make it. The doctors asked her whether they should treat my dad in case his condition worsens... by the looks of it, they too do not seem optimistic. The doctors wanted to know whether when the time comes they should resucitate my dad with electric shocks and place him on life support. My mum coulnd't make the decision... but thankfully dad had regained consciousness then. And he signed the form by himself.

It sounded like a death sentence. The form basically is a consent that dad does not want the doctors to resuscitate him when worst comes to worst. My grandpa had undergone the electric shock therapy and had all these vessels placed into his nostrils and mouth. It was painful. Dad does not want that. Too much suffering before, before...

Apparently mum and dad had a long conversation in the hospital. Dad was grateful, and also apologetic towards my mum for all the things that had gone terribly wrong. Mum told me how frail dad's health has become, and how he cannot possibly undergo another treatment. It will just kill him. But not undergoing treatment would also kill him, only much slower.

Mum told me about dad's moans of pain... his groans of suffering. She said she couldn't bare to hear that... how unbearable it was to hear, how painful to hear and to be unable to do anything. She too needs rest... she too is a cancer patient and cannot undergo too much stress......

Now the burden is on me to deal with a number of things. Brother couldn't care, couldn't be trusted, so I must step in and face the bureacratic machinery of having to certain arrangements just in case.

I prefer not to, because it is all so unpleasant to have to deal with money, inheritance, property when already you are dealing with a loss that is slowly but surely taking place....

I don't know what to think...