I swear we're not Santa

Two distant relatives of mine are currently being hospitalised, and I honestly admit I haven't gone to visit either one of them. No, I'm not heartless. I just find hospital visits very difficult to deal with, especially if the patients are diagnosed with incurable illnesses.

How do you deal with it? I can't; it makes me cry. I can't stand the sight of their helpless bodies having long trasparent wires and sharp needles jutting out of their skin, which are connected to various odd contraptions which help keep them alive. They're normally asleep from the anaesthetics given to help reduce the excruciating pain of the disease, the wounds from surgery, and the action of drugs combined. Sometimes they have oxygen masks on their faces, and that's even more painful to see. You can hear them struggling to breathe, and you can observe their chest rise and fall slowly, fearing that it would suddenly stop.

I prefer them asleep, because once they wake, the dams break; I cry. Visitors pretend to be cheerful around The Patient, asking how The Patient is feeling, telling The Patient what's going on in the world beyond the white hospital walls... it seems like a happy scene. But if you look into the eyes of The Patient, you can see that The Patient's smile does not quite reach the eyes. They are often a dull, gray colour, lacking life, longing life. You can see that the disease has drained all the joy and sparkle the eyes had, and flooded them with pain and torture. Yet The Patient pretends that s/he feels better, and wishes the visitors to remember him/her in their prayers. The Patient says this with all his/her strength, and once the short conversation is over and the visitors are asked to leave, The Patient retreats to dreamland, away from the pain of being awake, not knowing if s/he will witness tomorrow or not.

What's worse is if the doctor concludes that there is no more hope for The Patient, and that The Patient may go home to die. What should the family do now? It's easy for others to say that the family should accept whatever happens, and pray to God for some sort of miracle, but can they honestly do that? Even the tough, full-grown sons would cry, and the once jet-setting daughters would gather around The Patient's deathbed, leaving all their diamonds and mansions behind, hugging the family members tight and whispering in The Patient's ear how much they loved him/her. Family is the only thing that matters at this stage.


Nope, I really can't cope with that.