I only found out then that in New Zealand (and in some other countries too), doctors are among a group of professions legally allowed to witness statutory declarations.

She has had enough of the years of his abuse, she said, flatly. I would hate to be the person completing the last part of the legal paperwork allowing the breaking up of what was supposed to be a cherished and sacred matrimony (and how those words ring hollow in today’s society), but I signed my name almost too trustingly.

At that time, I just felt doing anything else would be like preaching cold ideals to a hurting world in need of something much warmer. Perhaps I can start somewhere else if I wanted to make a difference.

I was reminded of Matthew 19 too. But I still wonder if what I did was right.
I don’t know, what do you think?

It took more than a long fortnight of wait in the hospital before he was finally scheduled to undergo the operation the following week. The consultant cardiologist and I went to see him that Monday to tell him the good news of the confirmed operation date, but Mr. G surprised us completely.

He started off painting a rather awkward atmosphere talking about scars and the cross, then later declined the operation, politely but adamantly. He told us a friend from church had visited him over the weekend, and over prayer he now felt different – he was convinced that he has been spiritually healed.

“I have faith. Give me the chance to prove to you that I am right,” he said with a smile.

And I stood there – on my left was the consultant who didn’t immediately know how to respond from a cardiologist role, and on my right the patient whose claim couldn’t be explained easily with human wisdom.

At that moment, I suddenly wasn’t sure who to root for…
I have been thinking about it.

Blockbuster movies, parties with friends, breakaway shopping sprees, travel trips, hunting for music, chasing good books, enjoying food, and all the colorful product advertisements everywhere – do they not all target at our search for satisfaction? And the world is just full of such promises of satisfaction – that it is blinding.

Many of them are short-lived. Some of them are lies. We all know. Yet it is easy to get lost, and in the process, all we end up thinking and speaking of is about ourselves. All of this is like “a chasing after the wind”, as the book of Ecclesiastes aptly puts it.

There is much more to say, but I’ll stop. It actually takes some effort to think about this in the context of our personal lives (yours and mine)! But tell me what you think.

Chemotherapy is necessary, but it is also very rough and teratogenic – it will not go well with the expecting mum and the unborn baby. The problem was big and demanded a decision.

Here are two real stories about this – about real people in their real struggles:

1. Mum and dad decided to bite their teeth and carry through with the pregnancy without chemotherapy. The cancer spread in mom and she deteriorated quite badly over the course of pregnancy. Still she managed to barely reach 32 weeks when she was rushed to the delivery suite. She gave birth to a premature little baby boy via Caesarean section, and then received urgent chemotherapy in the delivery suite, then and there. The baby boy made it into the world alive and healthy, but mom passed away shortly a year after. Dad was left alone to take care of the newborn boy.

2. Mum and dad decided for an abortion. The lead-up to the abortion was fraught with many uncertainties, but the actual procedure was over way too quickly and easily. Mom and dad turned up together to the Cancer Centre a week later and began the chemotherapy cycles. The disease was as well-controlled as you could expect in modern oncology – but not without some sense of guilt that may never leave, no doubt.

But which is the right decision? Many circumstances in our lives are often just too hard for human wisdom. That is why there are so many regrets.

I almost entered a cold war with a nurse (How embarrassingly childish, I know, sigh…).
My hands shook like a wimp when I threaded the ET tube down the bougie into the
lady’s trachea.
I felt like a complete idiot after speaking in circling thoughts to the medical registrar.
I found I had nothing to offer at all, having just certified an old woman dead with her husband
sobbing harder and harder beside. I’ve never even known what to say in these situations.

This is totally not about the grandeur of doctors realizing how little humans can actually do,
But rather how little I know – how unable and how incompetent I am,
And how frighteningly unloving, unjoyful, unpeaceful, impatient, and unkind I can be,
When dealing with all sorts of people, in all sorts of situations, four o’clock in the morning.

In between the days and nights when things are going smoothly and happily,
I really thank God for this realization.

It makes me go back to Him.

But it was too ironic.

She was definitely not alone. In fact, too many are just like her – smokers for all their lives, who suddenly (and finally), out of their own intentions, quit smoking, only to be hit by a diagnosis of lung cancer shortly after. We see this again and again. Why do so many smokers stop smoking just before they get lung cancer?

Not all admit when asked, but often it is because they could feel that something was going amiss, and so they stopped in alarm. It might be some blood specks coughed up, or some strange weight loss that had worsened – not enough to make them see a doctor immediately, but enough to scare them to think, “Gosh, all my cigarettes may actually kill me one day!!”

But it is already too late; and what is done is done.

It is easy to point at others, but there are some things too – small and big – that we – all of us – keep doing, despite knowing they are wrong. Of course we pay, in the end.

Weakly could he still nudge his head when he saw me standing beside his bed that morning, but it was a swift deterioration, and he passed away – so quickly – about nine hours later.

In retrospect, should I have spent more time with him earlier the day? Should I have insisted more strongly for him to be admitted to hospital earlier? I don’t know; in retrospect there will always be many what-if’s and if-only’s. But I’m thankful I arrived home in time when he still had enough consciousness left to recognize me. I know he had always wanted to see me for the years I was away.

In the week that followed with the funeral service and relatives visiting, I realized, too, that there are many things so close, yet not usually talked about.

What other times in our lives do we talk about finding a good and suitable cemetery to buy a spot, in preparation for the future? What other times in our lives are we so open, even in the extended family about life, death and the next generations?

So I suppose I have grown up, my friends are getting married, my parents are soon retiring, and my young cousins now able to walk and talk. The people I have around me – many so very dear – are changing, and will not be around forever. Sometimes this is closer than we think.

Indeed we are all but a mist, that appear for a little while and then vanishes. Yet God has set eternity in the human heart. It amazes me, but I know many avoid the topic.

“Yes, but I don’t think she was swearing particularly to anyone though,” her colleague beside her tried to reason.

“It doesn’t matter. This kind of behaviour is simply not acceptable, especially in a hospital ward.”

Some patients or their relatives can be inexplicably rude and difficult to deal with, I can testify! Dealing with them have been terribly unpleasant and stressful experiences, needless to say. The conversation between the nurses about zero tolerance for abuse happened more than a year ago now, but somehow, now and then I still remember it and it makes me think…

What are our real conditions for helping someone?

Can you imagine someone helping you unconditionally? It’s a very strange feeling to be at the receiving end, is what I think.

We discussed with her about resuscitation in the event of a cardiac or respiratory arrest. The chances of us being successful, in her husband’s case, would be small. Even if we were to succeed, the quality of life gained back would likely be much reduced too. So carefully we asked if she would still like for us to attempt a full resuscitation on her husband, if that were the case.

“Yes,” she replied with resolve, but her voice flickered a little afterwards. “We’ve discussed this before. I want full resuscitation for my husband. …We believe in God.”

What a difficult situation she must had been in.

Yet later, in the ward office, when we were thinking again about his resuscitation status, the elective student in our team echoed out my thoughts better than I could express myself – if they believed in God and His timing, “Shouldn’t it be the other way round?”

But perhaps many times we won’t know for sure. Tell me what you think.

And on this baby’s cot were photos of dad and mom’s wedding. A shining bride and a dashing bridegroom. They were a young, newly wed couple, and this baby girl was their first child who was supposed to carry all of their dreams. But I wondered if she, sleeping quietly with a tube down her trachea connected to an artificial ventilator faithfully working to help her breathe, knew that.

Mom happened to be on-scene the previous time when the baby refluxed and breathed in (aspirated) some of her gastric contents. It was a really serious problem as you might imagine, but this baby was prone to doing it. The stomach acid would eat away the things along its path, and the lungs would get inflammed and damaged very badly.

It was a full-on resuscitation attempt that ensued, and the whole scene frightened mom quite a bit. She described her heart having “stopped twice”. Not everyone sees these things everyday. They question something deep in our hearts we often forget, but I digress.

A few days later, mom called for a Not-For-Resuscitation (NFR) decision on her baby girl. She was insistent on it, probably not without reason – and it was very hard on the staff, especially since the little baby girl had gone through so many resuscitations and survived. Of course the baby girl was the daughter of her mom, but the medical and nursing staff couldn’t come to an agreement, even after another long discussion during the morning ward round. We were at loss.

What is in store for this baby girl? Who can tell? There would probably be some brain damage that will leave a mark permanently all her life. It was difficult to even put a figure on the probability and severity of the disability, but surely the figures increased a little bit with every event that needed resuscitation.

Later the day, when I was winding up my jobs and getting ready to head home, I saw mom sitting beside her baby. Mom leaned forwards to put her face close, as though to listen every of her baby’s breaths. Her index finger wrapped around her baby’s teeny little hands. Unbelievably small they were, but beautifully pink.

I suddenly realized, then, that the decision must had been tremendously difficult for mom as well. It could not have been one that was made so blithely. I have no question about her love for her child, that I must say.

It is hard, for me, to think of anything while trying to refrain from passing any form of judgment. Tell me what you think.