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Wednesday, July 25, 2012DYING FOR A CUPPA
His was the first bed, on the right as I entered the 6-bed ward. He was lying asleep in a foetal position, curled up in an attempt to fight off the ravages of whatever illness was tearing away at his body. Sprigs of matted grey hair stuck out from his head, which like his wasted body, seemed so small. There were no blankets covering him - those had been pushed to the end of the bed - along with a sheet, which lay in a crumpled mess to one side.
He groaned, in obvious pain.
In a voice that seemed way too powerful to come from such a frail body, the man yelled "Help me! I'm dying!"
No one helped him. No nurse comforted him. No doctor rushed to find out what the emergency was.
The man fell back into his painful sleep.
Visitors hovered around other patients in the ward. Nursing assistants buzzed around like flies searching for their next target, looking busy, clutching their paperwork.
From the depths of hushed conversations, there came a rapid burst of crystal clear words; "Cuppa tea please! Two sugars!" The man groaned again & a nurse said "Yeah, alright, be with you just now".
The tea never came.
Over the course of the next week, the man's request for a cup of tea seemed to diminish considerably. He continued to shout out "I'm dying!" and, I noticed, "Just let me die - I want to die!". Women in the neighbouring ward complained about the 'noise', especially at night.
The man was sedated. A young female doctor came & gave him an injection, to keep him 'calm'. I felt the only strength the man had left in him was his voice & now that was being subdued.
A day later, I noticed a middle-aged couple at the mans bed. They had been called by the doctor apparently. They were family, yet I couldn't help wondering why they hadn't visited before? I overheard them talking about how the man had been moved from a care home to the hospital & how it was impossible for him to go back there.
No, I thought. He wants to die. The middle-aged woman shed a few silent tears & then together with her partner, left the man, the ward, the hospital.
The last time I saw the man, he was heavily sedated, but obviously still in pain. I saw his face , how gaunt it was, how pallid his complexion was. His mouth was wide open, sucking in breaths of air in deep, rasping gulps. His lips were pale, dry & stretched. Thickened spittle had dried & it hung like creamy coloured spikes from his top lip. I noticed a plastic dish on his bedside tray, containing moisture 'lollies'. I saw a nurse use one on & in his mouth, but just once. I knew he hadn't got much longer on this earth. I felt he didn't want to be around much longer.
The last words that I heard the man say were "I want to die". He didn't cry them out in anguish that time - he merely spoke them, almost normally.
My dad told me the next day, that the man had died in the middle of the night. The man got his final wish, despite not getting his cup of tea.
(No vicar, minister or preacher of any kind came to the man after he'd died, so in the middle of night, my dad - who was in the next bed - sat on the side of his bed & quietly recited a poem for the dead in Zulu. My dad isn't a particularly religious chap, but he wished the man well on his journey to the next life, knowing that finally, the man was at peace.)
 
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