Somebody
asked me the other day what my Dad died of. It's a question that makes
me grimace, both from the the memories it stirs up inside and because I
then have to decide what to say. People want a nice, quick, neat statement.
Cancer, falling safe, thresher, land mine or some other non-involved answer.
For them, my standard line is, "modern medicine." Then it's up
to them if they want to hear more.
See,
back a few years ago, my mother had open-heart surgery. This was after
many trips over many days to many doctors, and one emergency room (two
times). A diabetic woman over the age of sixty-five comlaining of chest
pain, she was diagnosed as having: a hiatal hernia, indigestion, being
a baby (she was insulted by a doctor to the point of tears, and then scolded
with "What, are you gonna DIE now?"), indigestion
again, and nothing at all. Despite the massive credentials and walls full
of diplomas of all the medical personnel who insisted she was fine, her
pain refused cease, and during a repeat visit to the ER (funny, all those
caring, sensitive people from the TV show must have been off that weekend),
she was finally (after being left to lie around for a while) diagnosed
as probably having had one, and possibly being
in the middle of another, heart attack. They had to wait for the chemistry
of course (apparently the "dart board" diagnostic method is reliable,
but not nearly as billable as good old lab tests), but after a day or so
they'd stabilized her, and were able to ship her off to the on-call cardiologist's
"home field" (apparently he was just moonlighting that weekend,
and he got a better cut of the gross at another hospital on the other side
of town). It was determined that, yes indeed, she'd had at least one heart
attack and it was generally considered a good thing that she hadn't waited
any longer (funny, she'd been going back and forth between doctors for
over a week; hard to say it was she who'd been waiting).
At
any rate, in the end, my mother had triple bypass surgery. When she got
home, my father (who'd had a heart attack himself some years prior) made
every effort to keep the two of them on a strict diet, and soon he was
in the best shape I'd seen him in in quite a while. He looked good, he
felt good, he did everything the doctors asked of him. Because of this
his "cardiologist" decided that his weight loss was suspicious,
and he was sent for a blood test; prostate cancer was suspected.
Yes,
his PSA was in the dreaded range, and after a few more uncomfortable tests,
he was diagnosed as having cancer of the prostate. I suppose I should mention
that my Dad's father had (when my Dad was only nineteen or so) himself
died of prostate cancer; this made the diagnosis that much more upsetting
for all of us.
Now,
had I known then what I know now.... Well, I didn't; none of us did. My
Dad was over seventy at the time, and prostate cancer is one of the slowest
growing cancers of them all. In a younger man, I suppose a quick course
of action would certainly be indicated. There are several options, I guess,
though only two were presented to my father. Doing nothing, surely, might
have been an option for a man his age. That was never mentioned. There
are several innovative, and apparently quite successful, procedures that
are fairly new. None of them were brought up. Surgery is possible; it can
be a rather humiliating experience for a man, and anyway due to my father's
heart attack some ten years prior to that, his doctor wasn't recommending
it. I think he discussed it with the intention of dismissing it (always
good to make the patient think he has options, no doubt).
Ah,
but there was one other treatment which this urologist was pushing for,
and that was radiation therapy. I'm sure it was a rather standard call,
on his part. An expensive procedure, for which he could refer my Dad to
another department in the same hospital (if there wasn't a direct kickback,
I'm sure it's the type of thing that is, at the very least, encouraged).
And certainly easier than just waiting, and having to keep an eye on the
patient. Just match patient "A" with treatment "B"
and you can wash your hands, and call the next victim, er, I mean patient
in for his ten minutes with the doctor.
So,
radiation it was. This involved (of course) more tests, an MRI, a CAT scan,
and lots of other uncomfortable and embarassing tests, followed by a weekly
barrage of radiation. He was told to expect bleeding, and to feel sick.
This much, at least, was true. These angels of mercy had burned a hole
in his colon. He bled, and he withered away. A man who looked strong (quite
good for his age) began to disappear. He couldn't sleep lying down anymore,
because he couldn't breathe. Well, to me that sounded like fluid building
up in his lungs; like heart failure. But I'm no doctor. He went regularly
to his cardiologist (the one who'd started all this to begin with), and
he told him his problems. Oh, I'm sure he didn't make a big deal out of
it; that wasn't my Dad's way. The doctor said he was fine; my Dad was glad
he was fine (though he wished he felt better, but surely that would come).
The radiation was successful; the cancer was gone.
My
father continued to bleed, and after almost two years of sleeping in a
chair (and regular visits to the urologist and the cardiologist who both
ordered tests and pronounced him fine as he shriveled, and grew smaller
and smaller before us), he had another heart attack. I guess he was just
too low on blood; his heart was greatly weakened. After spending some time
in the hospital, he went home. After endoscopy was done, they decided that
his bleeding wasn't exactly normal. His colon was raw and perforated. Yet
another doctor brought him in for many attempts to stop the bleeding. He
was able to help some, but told me that he would probably never be able
to get them all; he would always bleed.
I
got a call at work one day from my mother. Something was wrong, my Dad
was quite sick, and refusing to go to the hospital. I went there right
away. I'd never seen him like that. It makes me sick to think of it, even
to this day. He was obviously quite ill, and in a tremendous amount of
pain, barely cognizant. I was terrified, and we finally called an ambulance,
over his objections.
He'd
developed a very serious infection, they told us. His heart was very weak,
and he was near death. He didn't want to deal with doctors and hospitals
anymore; he'd been willing to give in, and die at home, I think. He was
in intensive care for a while, and he got better. His color returned. His
sense of humor came back. They sent him up to a regular floor on a Sunday;
we got him a TV, and I watched the Jets lose (as usual) with him.
Whenever
he couldn't get up and get around, my Dad would get terrible pain in his
legs; shingles, I guess you call it. He was in terrible pain that night,
and even the sheets on his legs hurt. It was very hard to watch, and as
my mother and I left for the evening, they were giving him something to
make him sleep. Some narcotic, I don't remember the name now, except that
it was a very strong one; something a little more powerful than valium.
Somewhere
during the course of that night, my Dad hallucinated, tried to get up,
and fell out of his bed. God only knows how long he lay there (I work in
a hospital, and I've seen how quickly the nurses move at night; hell, how
quickly they move during the day, for that matter). He broke his hip. There
were two choices presented to us for consideration. He could either lie
immobile for the many, many weeks it would take for the hip to heal, or
he could have surgery. The surgery option, because of how weak his heart
now was, was pretty much out of the question. It was so weak, he would
probably never be able to do much more than sit and look out the window
(at least, I found this out afterwards). The hospital staff (especially
the nursing supervisor) suddenly became quite concerned about my Dad. I
think they were expecting us to sue, I dunno. All I do know
is that the phone rang at about four o'clock in the morning a couple of
nights later. My Dad had died; his heart had finally given out, and he'd
never even made it back to his home.
He
died because he went to doctors, and did what they said. He died because
of the way modern medicine looks at parts of a person, but never sees that
person as a whole. He died because he was zapped with radiation until it
created unstoppable bleeding. He died alone in the dark in a hospital bed
because I'd trusted in doctors, and the modern medicine they practice.
He suffered a week of pain and the indignity of a hospital, because I didn't
trust him enough, didn't have courage enough, to let him die in the home
he loved. So, what did my father die of? It wasn't the heart attack. It
wasn't the broken hip. And it wasn't the cancer. He died of the cure.