“What’s your plan in life?”
” I want to continue study. After that job, marriage, children, may be run my own business, retire after 60…”
“And what do you think about your death?”
Everyone’s face turns red. Though we know the fact that everybody has to die one day, we don’t want to hear that word, let even think about it. Lord Buddha left his palace when he was about 19 years of age when he saw an old man, ill-diseased and a dead corpse, to get answer against the noble reality of life.2560th Buddha’s Day has passed, and despite the advancement in medical science in these years, neither is able to prevent the noble reality: ageing, illness, and death.
Recently one of my uncle’s friend lost his father, just a few days back. I felt sad, I felt emotional, as everybody feels when he/she lose loved ones.
During my medical education, I saw a lot of deaths.
In these years, what I have seen is, the desire of people to live, live longer, or live eternal is simply amazing (exception rare groups of people suffering from psychiatric people who simply want to kill themselves), You can’t see any difference in a desire to live in the eye of people, either he is a 25 year young guy suffering from HIV or 45 year middle-aged suffering from end stage alcoholic chronic liver disease or an 85-year-old man lying in ICU with one-half of his body completely paralyzed due to Stroke with multiple severe bed sores in his body.
Nobody wants to face the very simple reality of life that is death. Another amazing fact about life is its unpredictability that is what is going to happen in future. While we are always positive about our life and make a plan with it, there is every possibility that the unthinkable could happen to it.
Medical science is only there to make your life easier. Neither it can prevent death, nor it can make you eternal, not till date.
Along with the knowledge of how the human body works and about disease and process, medical studies taught me about the unpredictability of life.
Some unfortunate stories I have seen, and would want to share:
- Middle aged poor guy from a village in his ICU bed cries his tear of death. While in his life period, he has got a more dangerous injury, he never would have imagined, a small pin that pierced his sole through the heel of his slipper could finally take his life. Poor guy died of Tetanus. While many times previously he got similar minor injuries, (everyone working in village areas get small injuries every other day, it’s just part of their daily life and they take it minor). Wish he had got some information about Tetanus prophylaxis.
- Another similar history, this time, a small mouse bites and takes a big life (Rabies)
- A young guy around 30 is brought to Emergency Room in an unconscious state, could not survive even after advance life support .He was previously known to be healthy.
- Around 60-year woman who was planning to go to Canada with his son in few days, gets caught by fire in her Sari (cloth) >30%burn
- Let’s not talk about multiple deaths on arrival due to an accident, amputations due to accidents, and the death of old terminally ill patients. (Cancer, etc. Suicidal deaths demands a different topic)
My intention is not to demoralize but just discuss how unpredictable our life is. While there is no doubt that we should be always positive with our life, maybe we should in our hindsight also remember that the unthinkable could happen to us as well. As long as you don’t realize how bad your life could be, you won’t realize how good your life is. While I am preparing this article, its 2am in the morning, in a moving night bus, there’s every chance that the driver gets sleepy and the bus falls in a nearby dangerous river in a matter of seconds. Ah, I don’t even know how to swim properly. And you could have never read this. And yes these incidents happened before, though it rarely happened but there’s every chance it can happen and happen today.
What is life? Imagine hungry tigers below you, and you are walking on a bridge of single rope, just like a circus master walks in a rope in a circus. You misbalance a single step and the tigers are there to take. That is life.
My conclusion is, death is death when it comes it comes, we can’t control it. It can come in any way. You may exercise every day, take very nutritious and balanced diet, don’t smoke or consume alcohol, plenty of fruits and vegetables to prevent disease, but you still may get some form of cancers, respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, Diabetes, etc. You may get accident anytime. In a worse case, you get depressed and self-harm or suicide. One thing we should remember that medical science is only there to make your life easier. Neither it can prevent death, nor it can make you eternal, not till date. May be definitely, it helps sometimes prolongs your life.
So, It’s not important how long you live, it’s important how you live. If you are living in a way you don’t want to live, then it is worst than dying. Live happily, live life to its fullest. At the end, happiness is healthiness. Forget whatever World Health Organization says in its definition of health, even a man with cancer, HIV or any other untreatable disease, those who are physically disabled, can live happily /healthily. This article is also dedicated to those who are diagnosed with disease untreatable by medical science. I know how it feels when you know that you are going to be no more with the peoples you love, with those who grace you. While you are depressed thinking about it, know the fact that everyone else in this world is running against time, may be they have even less time than you have.
It’s 7 am in the morning; I have not reached my destination yet. What a coincidence, while I am writing about the same thing, we got stuck in a jam because a night bus fell into an accident. It could have ben this, my bus. Thankfully, I am still alive. Picture is taken through the window of my bus; sorry it’s not clear.
While I definitely say to my uncle’s friend, May his father soul rest in peace, just as a mark of good gesture from my side, I rather hope that he had lived his life to his fullest, lived happily while he was alive.
(Sudhan Panthi is a graduated Medical Doctor from Kathmandu Medical College,Nepal. - Khasokhas Weekly)