Would you tell someone that they are seriously ill and, in fact, may not have much time? A couple of months or so ago, there was a big discussion about a similar issue on M’s blog. (Sadly, for some personal reasons, she has not been blogging for a while.) My own take on this, based on personal experience and general belief, was that the person has a right to know. Now, in a similar situation again, I have revised my opinion a little. I still believe that one cannot keep such vital information from the concerned person. S/he has a right to know and, perhaps, more than others. But, I have also come to believe that such revelation, if there should be one at all, depends entirely on the person himself/herself. If I were sick, without a shadow of doubt, I’d want to know. Everything. Including the exact nature of my sickness and how much time I have left. I don’t know how that would help me or what I think I’ll achieve by knowing but, all the same, I’d like to be told.

There’re some people, however, who, you know, will not receive this information well. Because, through life, and through one’s actions and general beliefs, one creates a personal history, which, whether right or not, helps others around to form a certain opinion of the kind of person one is and what one’s take on various things is. There’re also some around that person who, you know again, will not be able to handle the news. Wise or not, this is what we’ve chosen to do. We’ve kept the information from the person who’s ill and from another person around this person. And, since these two don’t know, it seems unfair and wrong to tell the relatives, who, being who they are, are speculating anyway. Even fishing for information. But, being who I am, I’ve never bothered with established protocols and am not about to start now.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’ll regret this later but, although I do have misgivings about this, I’m not sure what good it’ll do to tell. The concerned person already seems beyond comprehending the truth, barely able to speak and, at most times, forgetful and disorientated. And, as my friend said, the only other person who doesn’t know, perhaps, is better off not knowing. It’s better for this person not to know and, therefore, not expect the worst everyday. It’s better this way because, besides age, this person has plenty of other personal physical problems to deal with.

Such situations cannot have definite rights or wrongs, I know, but that’s hardly comforting. It’s bad enough to watch someone deteriorate and slip away and these nagging doubts, about holding back information and the attendant guilt, only make it more difficult.

I was in Bombay when I got this news. When I spoke to the doctor from there, I was told that this person doesn’t have much time. I’m quite amazed that the same doctor and his team couldn’t detect the problem three weeks prior to this announcement, when this person was first hospitalised. At that time, the person was treated for a different ailment and given around 25-30 injections during the three days in hospital. How can they get it so wrong? Or, at any rate, fail to detect something so serious? I’m not sure it even makes sense.

Anyway, since modern medicine cannot do very much now, we’ve turned to alternative medicine but I’m not sure how effective it’s going to be at this stage. It’s not magic, after all.

(April 29) From the time that I first started to write this post, three days ago, there has been significant deterioration in the person’s condition. The signs, which I can co-relate to a similar illness in another person in the family many years ago, are rather ominous and anything that one does now only amounts to clutching at straws. But what else can one do?

(May 2, 2006) It doesn’t matter any more now, I guess. This person passed on on this Saturday, April 29.