Death itself is rather like zero, it is the limit which you approach but can never experience as a living human being.
Being dead is a state; it may be that, like zero on the number line, death is a point which you can pass through to the other side. What may be on that other side is a matter of pure conjecture, belief or definition.
Dying, however, is a process which we experience while we are still alive. After long years not wishing to think about this process, suddenly there is discussion everywhere.
Doctors, in particular, are not the best people to lead our thinking about this since, for them, death is the ultimate failure. And with all the growth in treatments & cures available, they have also become less good at dealing with those patients they cannot cure, for whose illness there is no pill. In far too many cases they have lost the art of simply making us feel better – which it is always possible to do, however ill we are.
I used to have a fondness for books of household management, mostly those of the first half of the twentieth century. They were treasures of (still) useful advice & eye-opening insights into how life used to be.
Any such book published before 1950 invariably had a chapter or section devoted to The Care of the Invalid.
A word you hardly ever hear as a noun these days. Indeed post-baby boomers may imagine that in these days of rules & regulations it is simply an adjective, meaning without legal force, void, a word that applies only to licences, permits or passes.
In the days before the NHS it meant anyone who was ill or “Infirm from sickness or disease; enfeebled or disabled by illness or injury” – which could mean a small child with one of the common diseases of childhood, a frail elderly person or many in between.
The principles of care were fairly straightforward:
- A clean, warm but airy room
- A comfortable bed
- Plumped up pillows
- Regular washing of the body & gentle brushing of hair
- Food which was nourishing, easy to eat, tempting to an appetite which may be weak. (Personally I always felt that the prospect of being fed on calves foot jelly & blancmange was a very good reason for staying valid)
- Treats & amusements
- Engagement with visitors & family life
It is easy to forget that a hospital was originally a place for the reception and entertainment of pilgrims, travellers, and strangers – a sense still recognised in the field of hospitality studies in which a very important element is the provision of food & beverages.
It was particularly distressing to follow the recent debate on the ‘ethics of hydration in the terminally ill’, for example in the correspondence columns of The Times.
While it would clearly be, at the very least, unnecessarily intrusive to insert drips into someone with only a short time to live, it is, again to say the least, inhuman not just to moisten their lips.
Even with a finger – for a loved one.
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Related post
The inevitable
