You’d become a fish, in a, fish tank now, with all your family members, “tuning in” to that webcam they’d asked the nurses at the hospital to set up for them, to help them, surveil you, at those, designated, times.
You’d become a fish, in a, fish tank, only, you can’t swim freely like the fishes in the confines of that tank, instead, you’re, STUCK in that bed, with the tubes going in and out of you, that oxygen mask on your nose and, mouth.
what the elder, became…photo from online
You’d become, a fish, in a, fish tank now, only for those who cared about you, to “view”, at those, designated, time slots. And, there’s, nothing you can say, or do, to take the control of your life, back, as you’d become, incapacitated already…
You’d become, a fish, in a, fish tank, and I feel sorry for how your loved ones, treated you like, some rare species of living creature they’re, trying to, keep, alive………
You’d become, a fish, in a, fish tank, as you are, living out, these, final moments, of your, life…………
The end is, near!!! As the moment came to decide, and all of you, her children can’t, reach, that consensus to unplug or to keep her “plugged in”…translated…
That was, a day of chaos, of trials! At the start, my eldest brother posted the message of mom experiencing stomach pains in the Family Group on LINE, in the afternoon, everything started, losing, control—mom was in a coma with a high fever, my eldest brother called up the ambulance, took her to the E.R., the E.R. said her blood pressure’s too low, needed a shot, C.T., the physician diagnosed our mother as shock from sepsis, and multiple organ failure, inflammation of her gall bladder, to the medical professional’s asking us if we want intubation, or use the defibrillator………..as all five of us arrived outside of the I.C.U., we were, faced with the signing of the D.N.R., to NOT have the medical professionals perform C.P.R. on her.
The nurse told us, “you guys should discuss this, these are the measures that the hospital will perform for the emergency resuscitations, there may be intubation, injection of the emergency life-saving medicines, shock, and chest compressions, etc., etc., etc. If you all don’t agree to these measures, then, sign on this piece of paper.”
We all started in discussion. “I think intubation is okay, but no electrodes.”, “Or, no intubation? Mom’s already eighty-eight……….”, the sniffling of voices started up. “Let’s think on it some more………” “Don’t you all want to at least try to save her, once!” the roar came. Followed by the, cries, “How can you say that?”
is this, what you want your loved ones to endure in their final stage of life??? This is what intubation looked like! Photo from online
Ahhhhhhhhhh, I’d come back home to visit with mom a few days ago, we’d laughed, and I’d, done some simple exercises with her too, how did the world turn upside down so fast? We are all, quite aware, that those of us who wanted mom to stay, are because we don’t want to lose her yet, and, those who wanted to sign the do-not-resuscitate, we don’t want to see her suffer any longer.
To keep her alive? Or to let her, go? Of course, I’d wanted to, try to save her, once, at least, and yet, I keep seeing how she’d lost her consciousness, with the mask over her mouth and nose, pumping the oxygen into her, and all those, tubes in her body, the ureter bag, with the machines by her hospital, bed……………..I don’t want mom to be kept alive by the machines, I think, what I want, for her, is for her to die, with as least pains as she possibly can.
And so, some of you guys wanted to save her, and some of you don’t want to see her suffer, and you and your siblings are, deadlocked, and, keeping someone alive like this, is, simply, way too, inhumane, think about it, who would want to live longer, if s/he lost consciousness, and is connected by the tubes, to the, machines, and by keeping your mother alive, you’re, keeping her here physically, and elongating her suffering, and she will be trapped longer, by her, ailing body, and that’s just, not, humane, would YOU want to be kept alive on the machines?
On difficult decisions of terminal care, because it’s hard, and we will all have to face something like this at one time in our lives or another, maybe with our own loved ones, maybe, when we get older ourselves…translated…
In This Process of “Letting Go”, it’s Next to Impossible for Those Who Aren’t in the Process to Know What Goodbye is Like………
The idiom of “long-term sickness brings NO good son”. There’d been the news reports on this matter, and, most of the people after hearing, they’d only felt chilled, or, that it was only, matter-of-fact. But in the medical realm, we watched the younger generations shouldered up the responsibilities of caring for their elders until the end; and yet, with the worsening of the elders’ conditions, the caretakers usually felt burned out, and started thinking of “letting go”. And, in this process of letting go, the heavy heart of the love for ones’ next-of-kin, and the sense of responsibilities, nobody on the outside can understand.
Insomnia is the Norm
Mr. Chen is seventy-six, eight years ago, he’d started dialysis, because he was the C.E.O. of a company, even as on Wednesdays he was due for the procedures, he’d still gone to his office to make the rounds first, visiting his old clients regularly.
At the start of last year, he’d started feeling the lower back pains, at first, he thought it was sciatica, after he had an MRI, it was the granulomatous spondylitis, and even as the surgery helped alleviate the symptoms, but, because he was bedridden too long after the surgery, his an elder, and a dialysis patient too, losing his muscle mass had greatly reduced his physical activity levels, and in the end, he’d needed his family to help him get through the days of his normal living.
illustration from UDN.com
This authority in business, a C.E.O., suddenly became someone who can’t control his own body, a patient, Mr. Chen’s moods altered as well. But, as his families considered placing him into a nursing home facility, Mrs. Chen decided to shoulder all of his care on other own.
As she’d come in to get her insomnia treated, I’d asked her, if her body could take it? She’d said, she’s older, and as her husband hollered, she’d had to go to him quickly, surely, there was, enormous stress on her, in the past six months, she’d started feeling the strains. But, thinking about “letting go” of her husband whom she’d stayed close to for half a century’s time, she couldn’t, accept that……………
Her First Words Were “I Want to Go Home”
Another elderly woman, Grandma Shih, who had kidney problems due to her diabetes who is a regular at my clinic, I’d been her physician for more than decades, I’d gotten to know her families well, knew that her offspring took care of her living needs daily, so her kidney function was quite stabilized. Once I’d thought, that she will never need dialysis, but, her heart failed, and at the age of ninety-three, she’d entered the line of dialysis.
There would be the many situations in the elderly population after the dialysis especially, and, a more complex set of complications compared to the younger generations, for instance, infections from bacteria or virus, or, hemorrhages, it’d made her come in and out of the hospital many a time, she’d become, weakened, in the end, she’d relied on the feeding tubes, and I saw her son, with his eyes red, as he’d, fed the formula into his own mother’s feeding tubes, and I’d felt really bad, and, can’t believe, that Grandma Shih would need this sort of an end-of-life care for her.
As she choked on her own vomit that final time, Grandma Shih lost her vitals on the way to the hospitals, because the conditions were critical then, we’d immediately intubated her, although afterwards, the families held different opinions on intubation, but, at the moment, it was emergent. Luckily, the elderly pulled through, and started breathing on her own, it’s just that as she was discharged from the hospitals, she’d become, bedridden, and her days and nights were, flipped, causing too much strain on her loved ones, as well as the nurse’s aide too.
Because of necessity, they’d found a facility that can perform the dialysis for her, placed the elderly woman in the home, so she could get the care she’d needed. At first, as the son went to visit, Grandma Shih remained silent, and her eyes couldn’t focus; but after a week, she’d recalled her son’s name, and started stating, “I want to go home”. And, this made her son started blaming himself for deciding to place his own mother in a nursing home facility.
In the final passage of her life, Grandma Shih continued staying in the nursing home facility. Six months after she’d passed, her son told me, “Sometimes I’d regretted it, not known, if I’d done right by her or not”, even if they couldn’t watch over Grandma Shih around the clock—that seemingly easier option became, the road block he tried to cross over his whole life.
Those with the long-term illnesses, are the ones suffering, and, the primary caretakers around them are, too strained, it is a difficult choice, letting go, or not; if you’d chosen to not let go, you’d be straining yourself, and, you have to feel the pains and sufferings of the ones you love dearly; but as you’d selected to let go, you are filled with the unwillingness of letting them die, and this may cause you to regret it for the rest of your lives.
And so, there you have it, this is a difficult decision, that we will all face someday, maybe it’s with our own parents, or, when we get older ourselves, and, there’s still no right or wrong on this, and, that’s just, how life goes, sometimes, we’re, just forced to make these hard decisions for the ones we love dearly, because we don’t want them to suffer anymore, and sometimes, we choose to keep them alive, because we aren’t, ready, to say goodbye yet, and, by doing that, we’re, prolonging their, suffering.
Two cases of the means of intubation here, but with, totally, different outcomes, on life and death, off of the Front Page Sections, translated…
In the times of outbreaks, the severely symptomatic had signed their DNR, but, the outcomes were, not the same, some, at the moment of critical conditions, retracted the signing of the DNR, intubated and recovered. But there were those patients whom, not knowing what was happening, signed the DNR, but in the advices of other physicians from other hospitals, retracted, and transferred, had the ECMO placed in, and still died.
The woman, Chen in her sixties with diabetes, was confirmed of contraction, sent to a specialty ward for MERS-CoV of a major hospital in Taipei, she wasn’t good, had a serious case of pneumonia, with her blood sugar rising up, and kidney malfunction, her conditions worsened, and the hospitals put her on dialysis.
Chen told, that back then, the medical staff members wanted her to sign the DNR, and stated it clearly, “This is for your own good, also, for the sake of your offspring!”, and so she’d, signed it, and, checked the box of “no intubation in emergency resuscitation”.
But, at the other nurses’ advise, she’d, retracted the consent forms, and this decision seemed to have, saved her life, a few days later, she had respiratory failure, the doctors intubated her, and actively treated her, used the steroids, and she’d turned for the better, and was out of the hospital safely in the end.
the medical staff members intubating a patient! Photo from online
The sixty-two-year-old Mr. Shih didn’t have such good luck, he was confirmed of contraction last May on the thirtieth, was hospitalized at the hospital nearby to his home, within two days of admittance into the hospital, the medical staff members tried actively persuading him to sign the DNR, and he’d trusted the medical professionals’ advice, and signed it.
Mrs. Shih had been confirmed of contraction days earlier, and was treated at a different hospital, as she’d learned of her husband’s signing his DNR, she’d discussed it with friends, of them, one who is a physician advised against it, reason being that her husband isn’t elderly, nor did he have any serious illnesses. And so, she’d tried hard to persuade her husband to get the DNR retracted.
A couple of days later, Mr. Shih’s conditions took a turn for the worst, his primary treating physician called Mrs. Shih up, “Intubation or not, it’s a hope, it’s quite painful for the patients to be intubated, so many patients who’d been intubated didn’t make it.”
The following day, the physician called again, “if you don’t sign the papers, when the time comes, we will, shock him with the electrodes, and, the CPR we perform on him may break his ribs.”, but Mrs. Shih decided to get her husband intubated. A couple of days later, the hospital told her that her husband needed around-the-clock medical care, and transferred him to a medical center up north. But because of the critical condition Mr. Shih was in, they’d put the ECMO in, but the sudden internal bleeding, even as the paramedics did their best, he still passed.
And so, this is on the decisions of life or death, made on a dime, and we are faced with these difficult decisions about our loved ones, especially the elderly family members, and, there’s still no right or wrong way to approach this, and, usually, these moments came too quickly, that we won’t get the time to make that list of pros and cons, and then, decide what we want to do for our, loved ones.
In the, “home stretch”, and, we’re, almost, there…
This, final, mile of life had been, too, difficult for you, you’d been, in and, out of the hospital, and, you’d, “survived” through each and every one of your, emergency visits.
This, final, mile, is still, not yet done for you, but, as you grow weaker by the day, I’d, wondered, when will your, suffering, end? And, how much longer, must you be, tortured, like so?
This, final, mile, it wasn’t, supposed to be, easy, not for you because you do NOT deserve, an, easy death. This final, mile, you’d been, admitted, released, readmitted, rereleased, from the hospital, again, and again, and again.
in this, “home stretch”…
photo from online
And your families, get, trapped, in the signing of your DNR, over, over, over, and over again, and each and every single time those E.R. nurses asked about whether or not you’re, DNR, they would, battle with themselves, as well, as each other.
They don’t want you to suffer, but, having you for one more day, well, that’s, one extra day they will get, with you………
The decisions to stop treatment, or to, continue it, weighing the pros and cons of it, over, over, and over again, in our minds, and, we can only pray that in the end, we’d, made the, right choices by our loved ones.
Upon reading Marcie’s “Difficult Choice” on August 25th, I was moved, this hard-to-master lesson of life, is, harder to solve than the, mathematical, equations.
I was forty-two on the year, thought of how at age forty-two, my father caught me, who let out the very first cries of my life, and how time flew quickly by, turned all our hairs white, made him hunched in the back, and, eroded away, his aging, skins. I’d squatted down, helplessly, in the hallways of the hospital, with my arms around my knees, I’d, broken down and cried. The sun still radiant outside, while my world had, crumbled down, no longer, is it, a full-circle again.
this…
photo from online
After the marrow was extracted, the biopsies on his liver done, I’d, pushed him back to his ward. “Ouch!” that was the only word he’d, mumbled aloud after he came to, following that, he’d, drifted into that cycle of, never-ending, eternal, waking and sleeping.
The eyes behind the glasses, with that genuineness about it, said, “sir is too elderly and too weakened in physical strengths, I’m afraid, that he won’t able to get through the chemotherapy or the surgeries, you and your families must make up your minds, don’t leave the regrets for tomorrow, the patients are in pain, the families, in even more, pain.” The young resident stated these words, that, made my heart twisted up even tighter, can it, not be, a “multiple choice” question?
Three years ago, my eldest uncle fell seriously ill, my older cousins couldn’t let him go, his life was, spared, but, he was kept alive, with all those, tubes going in and out of his body, it’d, made the families, relatives, and friends wondered, can we, tie him down with love, to save his body, because we don’t want him to go? Then, two months later, he’d gone, and, my older cousin kneeled down in front of the altar, and cried like hell, and blamed himself for making the wrong decisions to save his own father then, that he shouldn’t have, put his own father through those two more months’ worth of, trials in the body.
AS my younger brother heard the surgeon’s statements, he’d exclaimed aloud, “of course, SAVE him!” “my father’s a military man, he would NOT want to live on like this, I want to save him too, but, as his daughter, I know I can’t be, so, selfish”, I’d, finally, got those, words out, and after that, my heart had a hole in it. My youngest sister cried, shook her head, and waved her hands no too, she was, my father’s, favorite, youngest child, it’s, simply, too difficult, for her, to voice her thought on the matter.
or this…
saying their, final, goodbyes…and letting go…photo from online
I’d, pushed that hospital bed, with all his belongings, took him to the hospice ward. It is, very hard to describe what it’s like in there, there are the hopes and expectations of getting out one day on all the other, floors, while here, the patients are, walking, a step closer to death by the day, but it’s, not just that.
As we entered into the hospice, my crying, stopped, the sorrows are, all over the places, but my father looked, more at peace, and, as he woke, he’d said, apologetically to me, “it’d been trying on you”. my foolish dad, can you, breathe, a bit longer, so, your children can, hold you in their arms, longer, so I can, be a daughter, with a father still?
After a full month in the hospice, I took dad home. In the company of his children and grandchildren, without those tubes going in and out of his body that made his life even harder, he’d gained, an, extra month, two days after Father’s Day, he’d selected to, fall, into, that eternal, sleep, and thus, our, scents of, missing him, started, rooting downward.
So this would be, one of the, hardest decisions that someone is forced to make, to save the loved ones or to just, let them go, I mean, there’s, a lot to, consider in the matter, are you, willing to, try your loved ones longer, just so you can have them with you longer, or, would you be willing to, say your, goodbyes to them, and, leaving, no love unsaid, and, just, let them go?
On watching her husband, suffer, with his terminal illness, waiting, for death to come and, claim him, translated…
That day, my husband was, wheeled into the treatment room, had a “smooth ride” of his cancer treatment processes, no loss of hair, no losing all his weight, he’d only, complained of aches and pains more often, and as the primary treating physician visited his ward, he’d only, begged him for more pain meds, but, after the pains subsided, another sort of illness, took him over.
One afternoon, I’d, rushed off to the hospital, it was the call of the caretaker from the bed next to his. I’d never seen him like this before, lips trembling continually, kept apologizing repeatedly, I’m sorry, I’m, sorry, the group of doctors hovered over his bed, and started discussing, and because my husband was in and out of comas, and started calling aloud things that don’t make sense, fearing that it might affect the other patients who shared the same room as he, they’d decided to wheel him into the treatment room.
as he’d, become like this…photo from online
And after that we’d, taken, that downhill slope toward, the bottom, he could laugh and chat at first, but, with his getting diagnosed with acute pneumonia, he had an intubation, and because of how the hospital worried that he might hurt himself, they’d, restrained him with the cloth bands to his bed, and his elbows now, bruised up, with the days that came and went, his skins ulcered. Every day, he’d slept, waken up, waken up, and slept, and can only, stare at the ceilings, as he’d come home from work from before, he’d, ranted, incessantly on what went on during his work day, he can, no longer speak a single word now, and it must be, too, trying for him.
At first, my husband mapped out his, recovery plan, placed it at the bottom of his, desk drawer, he had a strong will to survive then, was optimistic on this path to, defeat cancer, and yet, months passed by, the life and death that came and went in the hospital wards, the elderly who was still there on the next bed, got wheeled out with a white cloth covering the bed today, my husband also, transferred from the normal wards, into the I.C.U., and connected to the machines to live now.
Once, I’d, gotten closed to his ears, told him, “if you still want to live, nod”. And it wasn’t, as I’d expected, a nod, he’d shaken his head then, for a very, very, long time, with the tears that stained up a huge chunk of his, pillow. While I, too selfish, can only, struggle within my own self, after I’d made up my mind, I’d still, tried to keep the moments of visiting him in the hospital afterwork, again, and again, and again, hour by hour, and, begged for that, unknown day, to finally, come.
And so, this, is how difficult it is, to watch someone you love very dearly, get tortured by his, illness, and, at the start he had this strong will to survive, thought he was going to, overcome, but, as time went by, he grew weaker, sicker, and now, he can only, lie in his hospital bed, and wait for death, and there’s, nothing you CAN do for him, save for, sign that DNR on his, behalf now.
The choice, to decide how we will, leave this world, it’s, an important one, signing the DNR, lessons that life have to, offer, off of the Front Page Sections, translated…
“The Right of the Patients’ Selves” was signed last January, and Taiwan marches, one step toward “dying easily”. The honorary professor of the Changgong University Medical School, Chiao recalled her own caretaking experiences from forty-two years ago, how she had, prepared herself for being charged with “murder”, pulled the plug on her own father. And now, she’s a terminal cancer patient herself, and set up her own DNR, and planned to “leave the world naturally”.
Her father was a retired army general, gone to war, she clearly remembered her father’s beliefs about life, not going against what’s natural, not forcing life along.
instead of this…
photo from online
Chiao told, that at age seventy-three, her father started having memory issues, but they couldn’t find a reason, they’d not known it was dementia, her father and older brother lived in Taoyuan, one day her father disaprpeared, and seven days later, the police called, told the families that her father had, wandered to Yilan, which was, over hundreds of kilometers away, covered in his own urine and fecal matter, and he couldn’t tell them how he got there, what he had for food, or where he’d stayed.
At eighty-six, her father had a cold, which caused pneumonia, and sepsis too, he was hospitalized, Chiao told, that there were tubes connected to her father’s body, with the tracheal tubes as well, the doctor was about to place her father on life support, she’d discussed the matter with her older siblings, and, decided to honor the way their father lived, and signed the DNR.
Chiao graduated from the nursing department of N.T.U., back when she was only thirty, she’d stated the wish for all of her family members, the doctor replied back coldly, “How can you all be such unfitting children, how can you let your father die?”, seeing how the doctor wouldn’t do it, the families asked Chiao to pull the plugs. For this, she’d read at the medical libraries of N.T.U. for an entire week on the ethics of medical treatment, and proved that her and her families had, made the right decisions. She said, her father’s heart, liver, lungs, and kidneys had all failed, if he were still conscious, he would certainly, NOT allowed so many tubes to get him plugged in, besides, his weight reduced to twenty-seven kilograms, nothing but skins and bones left, unless there’s a way to transplant all the vital organs in his body, there’s no way to save him, there’s no reason to, prolong his, sufferings.
wouldn’t you rather have…
rather than prolonging the sufferings of someone you love and cared about? Photo from online
“The medical staff members started whispering, said that I was, murdering my own father.” Chiao took her clothes, a bible, readied herself for prison after she’d pulled her own father’s, plugs. Before she’d taken her father off life support, the treating physician demanded that she wrote on her father’s medical records, “The daughter, Ko-Shih Chiao pulled the tracheal tubes herself”, and noted the year, the month, the day, the hour, and the second when it was done.
“After the tubes were pulled, my father took a deep inhale, I was so scared, called in all my family”, the family stayed by the father’s side, until he passed away in peace. Chiao believed she’d made the right decisions, but still struggled with the decisions long. As she worked as the assistant head nurse at VMH in Taipei, she’d had eight terminally ill patients who were tried by their conditions in her two years of working there, and they’d, taken their own lives, it’d pained her even more.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer at age fifty-eight, and it’d relapsed, she was on the target drugs. As the legislation of “Patient right” came last year, she’d set up her medical will, “if I can’t be cured, and there’s a lot of pains that come, then, I shall, die naturally, no need to prolong my own, suffering.”, awhile ago she broke her leg, the doctor said if she get it surgically corrected, it will be healed in just one month, otherwise, she’s going to wait for three, four months for it to heal up on its own; she’d assessed, that the drugs she was taking for cancer was causing her white blood cell count to drop, that it wasn’t fit for her to go under the knife, and decided to let time take its course, and if it doesn’t heal properly, it’s the way it’s intended to be.
And so, because of her work, she’d seen a ton of people at the terminal stages of life, and realized how important it is, for the ailing to make ones’ own choices to whether or not to get resuscitated, and, she’d, honored her own father’s wish, despite HOW the outside world perceived her, and she’s, made the most important medical decision of her own life herself too.
tattooed, around the area where the tube is, supposed to, go in…photo from online
I’d been found, in the TERMINAL stage of cancer, it’d, progressed too advance, metastasized, took over, my other organs as well, but because of your not ready to let me go, I had to, suffer, longer than I had to.
I get, that you love me, and couldn’t see me die, but heck, EVERYBODY dies, I’d, already, come to understand that, through the course, of this, illness, and, as my cancer had, progressed, little, by little each and every day, I’d, become, less than all I once was, I’d lost, ALL my dignities, I’d started, wearing DIAPERS for crying on loud, and needed people, to carry me up and down, and I can’t even, sit STRAIGHT, in my god damn, WHEELCHAIR either!
Despite everything that’s been done, my cancer is still “on”, in fact, it’s, MORE than on, and, this last round of chemo, it’d, left me, so FUCKING weak, I can’t even see anything in front of my eyes now.
the forms…photo from online
Is this the way, I want to live? HELL no! And yet, you’re, still, keeping me here, but W-H-Y, huh? Why do you, HATE me so, that you feel compelled, to DRAG me through this SHIT in these dying days of mine? And, why can’t I, just, have some peace, and just, live from breath to breath?
I’m NOT afraid to D-I-E, by any measures, in fact, I wish I were DEAD now, and yet, look at, these tubes that are, attached to my body, there’s one, to drain out the excess fluids, one that’s, in my arms, to draw the blood out for testing’s sake, and oh, do you not see, this tube that’s, stuck down MY fucking throat here? And, don’t EVEN, get ME started, on what feeding time is like every single time here???
Now, ask yourselves this: would THIS be the way, you all want to, live out the rest of your lives? And, if you could have a choice, wouldn’t you, just, want someone, to PULL the P-L-U-G-S?
So, why are you, still, keeping your own loved ones, connected to that monitor, beeping, beeping, beeping, beeping, beeping, and beeping away, huh?
This is, completely, I-N-H-U-M-A-N-E, and NOBODY deserves to, LIVE like this, especially, NOT during those, final days, years, months of her/his, life………
The interviews with those considering euthanasia, whose been in ailing health conditions, from the Entertainment Sections, translated…
Bowie Tseng in Basel, Switzerland, witnessed the 104-year-old Australian biologist, Goodall, ending his own life by euthanasia, in the final three days of his life, she’d stayed with him, ate with him, held conversations, in that final moment, she was, filled with ambiguity inside, “in just one hour, he will be gone, and I’d messed up the time he should be spending with him family, because of work, until he’d finally asked those around him, ‘what are we waiting for?’, the employees of the clinic told him, ‘there are still forms we need to fill out’, he’d sighed, ‘there are always forms to be filled out’, at that moment, I’d, let go, I shouldn’t use my own sorrows, to interpret him leaving the world happy, that’s what he wanted to do the most, as a bystander, we should, give him our blessings.”
photo fo Bowie Tseng interviewing the elderly man in Switzerland, from UDN.com…
Bowie Tseng took the documentary filming, in the past few months, she’d trekked to Great Britain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Ireland, to interview those who’d lost their loved ones by euthanasia, and in February, she’d also, interviewed the activist for euthanasia in Taiwan, Dar-Jen Fu, “he’s weak, needed morphine to stay alive, in the interview sessions, he was still full of responsibilities, claimed the purpose of his wanting his own death.” And, before she set foot to go to Switzerland, she’d thought of a million questions to ask Goodall, the biggest shock for her, “I’d never interviewed anybody who’d determined her/his own date of death, how do I go about approaching him, how do I ask my question, to not be offensive toward him, how do I, say goodbye.”
Bowie Tseng said, “He’s older than I imagined him to be, I’d held onto the oldest hands I’d ever shaken, with the years on them, wrinkles, spots, and because of muscular atrophy, the joints were very apparent, but he was still very strong. I’d gone with him and his family to the botanic gardens for a stroll, he’d petted the plants along the way, I’d asked him if he was saying goodbye to them all, and he’d asked me, ‘why would I?’, at that very moment, I’d found, all the questions I’d wanted to ask him to lose meaning, because he doesn’t care anymore.”
There’d been war between the pro and anti euthanasia groups, Bowie interviewed a British elderly woman, who was born with severe handicap, and in the entire interview, she’d needed the respirator connect to her, and every fifteen minutes, the nurse had needed to help get the phlegm out of her lungs, but because of her optimism toward life, and her two marriages, despite how bad her conditions for staying alive was, she’d spoken up against euthanasia, and her speech had helped altered British law, and, gotten the parliament to vote against euthanasia. And BBC filmed the life of “Simon”, the businessman who had ALS, who’d not progressed to the point when euthanasia should be a consideration for him, he was accompanied by his own wife, to have it, as the footages come out into the open, it’d shaken up the entire world. Bowie Tseng said, “I’d interviewed his wife this time, and she’d told me she was regrettable for doing this, she believed, that death is not the business of the individual, although you may be ill, but you still don’t have the rights, to take away the time your family gets to spend with you.”
something used, to show that you don’t want to be resuscitated, photo from online…
After this experience, Bowie Tseng said, “I will work hard, to cherish my life every day, every gathering with friends, every meal, I will work hard, to make all of this meaningful.”
And so, because this woman was personally interacting with these individuals who are in the process of getting euthanized, it’d impacted her, on a personal level, and, she’d bore witness to how bad someone was living, and yet, still was against euthanasia, this is probably going to be, the most memorable experience of interview that this woman will ever have in her entire life.
photo from online
the forms…photo from online
photo fo Bowie Tseng interviewing the elderly man in Switzerland, from UDN.com…
something used, to show that you don’t want to be resuscitated, photo from online…
Mirroring the World 
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