What is right?

It was this article on euthanasia which was referred by RK –  it brought back the dilemma and memories!

Author has listed the five stages the dying people and their family go through – Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance

but my memory is clear…………

the first feeling was fear……..it came and set in – ‘what will we do without her ‘

then came –  ‘why me?’  –  ‘there are millions of poeple who are bad and why God chose us to go through this’

the associated anger  – ‘who did this to us? someone has done this to us, is God fair?’

denial  -‘this can not happen to us, we had been always good to all..there is something wrong…this can not be possible’

bargaining –  with the great LORD himself – so childishly – ‘i will never eat icecreams in my life for ever if she gets cured and lives, i will go around the sanctum 108 times with foot over foot…etc, etc’

and the acceptance –  WHICH NEVER CAME 100%….even today, i wish i could pick up the phone and talk to her and update her on the day’s happening, on the new watch i bought, etc, etc.

There were lots of moments where we had to decide  –   the doctors could lay down the pros and cons of each treatments  –  the cost, the pain, the side effects, the probability of cure (it is never 100%)….

The initial decisions were made with the  single focus of getting her back……we never discussed about the side effects, we never discussed the probability which was always less than 100%, we never checked if she was willing to go through the pain of the therapy……..

The days were long, the treatments were tough………slowly, the feeling of desperation was setting in………i could not stand seeing her going through these tough periods of physical agony…

It was one of those days –  I remember it was the day after a painful therapy – she was on the bed and still under pain of the therapy, I was helpless and trying to read a ‘sloka’ loudly at her bedside with a hope that it will reduce her pain – she looks at me and says ‘ do not worry,  I am going through all these as I want to live for some more time and spend all those additional hours with you and B’

I broke down and at that moment decided that I will do whatever I can to increase her life span – B and me were ready to go to any doctor, try all feasible things because she was ready to go through those pains for just being with us for another day.

But there were times where I felt guilty  – ‘ are we making her go through too much of a pain  just for our sake?’  But B had always his positive attitude to reassure. “even if we can extend her life by six months or so, there are chances that there is some breakthrough in the medicine/treatment.  The research is ongoing and there are lot of positive breakthrough in this field..we have to go through this..think of the chance…the new medicine can make her live for another two years and in that time, with all the research going on…there can  be a cure’

Today, when i read the article, i just could conclude that all it matters is what an individual feels  –   never a government or a medical board or a group of activists can decide for an individual on the right to live or die.