She just couldn't hold her tears back. She had thought about it million of times in past
twenty four hours. Now she was too exhausted and drained. They were ‘letting
go’ her best friend. This was what he had mentioned in his medical forms. If he
failed to recover from the ventilator after a month, they should wean him off
the machine.
She thought
it had been easy for him. He was not present to bear it all but it had been
really tough on her. She had been coming here every single day. She had been sitting
by his side, reading him newspaper and stories, sharing their photo albums,
talking about their plans to settle down, praying and finally crying, seeing no
signs of any activity. The day had finally come.
There were
only four people in the room- his parents, sister and herself. She stood in the
corner while his parents stood by his side. There was palpable sadness in the
room. The doctor said, “ I am going to speak aloud the procedure. Even if you
all think you are prepared for what is going to happen, you are not. By saying
this I am giving you little time to catch up. He continued “Now I will
switch-off the ventilator. After I stop his medications, I am going to extubate
him. He has been given morphine so that he won’t feel any of this.” The doctor
explained that once his friend had been removed from support he could only
survive few minutes or last couple of hours and left the room giving them
privacy.
She was lost in her thoughts. It was difficult
for her to digest that ‘this is it’ though doctors had been warning her
throughout the month but somewhere her heart refused to believe what was coming
along. All eyes were stuck at the monitor which slowly showed the heart rate
going down and the line finally going flat. Her silent sobs turned into shaking
cries and her mind went numb….
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