When my time comes....

Seeing my uncle lying helpless in an ICU brought to the fore the stark reality of hospitals and what goes by the name of medical care but is actually medical prolonging of life. This comes at a huge price, and I am not talking of the zeroes behind the initial number that seem to increase and decrease with the depth of your pocket or the number of zeroes in your policy. I refer to the price you and your loved ones are willing to pay and this price is not measures in zeroes.

If you succumb to the seduction of the medical fraternity then be ready to abdicate your dignity and above all your right to decide. You are no more a person but a 'case' or at best a 'patient', and never has the etymology of a word been more appropriate as patience is something you will need more than ever! You and your loved ones are made to feel like idiots or pesky beings to be dismissed as you would a fly.

I wonder who invented the backless gown that is the preferred garment of all hospitals. I am sure it was designed not only for convenience, and that too of the caretakers, but to relieve you of your last shred of dignity. Then you are easy meat for all the investigations and tests and needles and tubes that will be prodded into you with alacrity and impunity, each one dutifully registered on your bill. Your family stands helpless, nodding to everything that is barely suggested but rather commanded. And because they love you they nod their assent. Then you may be shifted into what is known as the ICU but is rather a fish bowl. It is a timeless space where you are again conned out of the comforting lull of night and day and deprived of the one element any hurting human craves for: silence. What you will hear, and hear you do even when supposedly comatose, are the bleeps and jarring sounds of the innumerable machines and monitors you are hooked on.

Your family watches powerless and hurting.

We all write wills to be read after our death but I feel we need to write one that deals with the way you want to be treated when your time comes.

When my time comes, I want to be in my home surrounded by all those I love and by all the objects that have lived alongside me. I want to know when the sun rises and when it sets. I want to wake up when I feel like, and maybe hear the call of the first bird. I want to hear the wind as it blows in the trees that I have seen grow and even planted. And above all I will not abdicate my right to silence. Silence has been my greatest friend. I want my alone time that I have earned after much toil. I want my lungs to breathe on their own, my heart to beat unaided and should they fail me then I would still say well done as they stood me fast for so long.