cloudy and dark

This article about how doctors themselves deal with serious illness and the end of their own lives is fascinating.
If only because it matches up with my mum's attitudes to her illness at the end of her life. She had worked in palliative care and cared for many people with CHF and other things and helped them pass away in various stages of comfort, discomfort, peace or terror. She spoke with us and her care team about how she wanted only comfort care and a DNR status once in hospital (do not resuscitate). She could have had some other things done that would have been painful a with a low chance of helping out significantly in the end, but she just wanted to be comfortable, with managed pain. Her doctor (whom I think was incredible) called it "comfort care". I am grateful, to this day, for her decision.

And yes...yes it is hard to watch those you love die, or (god forbid) go through it yourself, but I think that after working where I have for many years I might respond to a terminal diagnosis very differently than I would have years ago. Similar to mum. If you undergo painful treatments to gain a few months that are filled with agony...are they worth it? What if it is done for your loved ones? I don't know how I feel about that...because I have watched loved ones slowly linger on from cancer and other things...and lose who they were just to stay technically "alive" and I would not ask someone to do that for me. I would feel selfish. As a favourite song of mine says (and which I now identify with utterly) "love is watching someone die".  Sometimes there is nothing you can do but be there, together at the end of it all and face it together. I know I would want time with those I care for for as long as I could. But when if I were in severe pain and just so very very tired...? I think I'd just want to go when my body felt it was done.
But that's just me...