Tonight I faced my fears. Rarely in your life do you get the opportunity to come to that point, that very sharp point where you clearly have the choice to walk into your fear or turn and walk away. The price is often greater to turn your back. Tonight for a split second I faced this decision.
They say I’m brave. When I first heard this I thought of all the things I couldn’t do, wouldn’t do. But over the years I’ve learned to see myself as willing to do what others won’t. I’ve learned that brave is not without fear as I thought, it is the choice to go on with fear in your heart, anyway.
The six of us walked out of the room, carrying all his belongings in plastic bags, nothing more to say. It was over. We walked to the elevator in a group, our heads down, not looking up at the people we passed, all lost in our own thoughts. We reached the elevator, my husband holding the door as the rest of us filed in. Khun Nuk spat out, “his dog!” “The little dog, we forgot the dog!” We looked at each other and since I was the last to enter the elevator and I was only carrying my pocketbook, I said with an audible sigh, “I’ll get it.”
It was a split second decision. I turned and went back. Back down the carpeted hall, with my head down, hoping someone was behind me so I wouldn’t be alone, knowing I was. I walked past the nurses’ station and came to his door. We’d only been gone a moment and still my choice was to turn and get someone to go in with me or face my fear and enter on my own. The slightest hesitation and I knew in my heart, I had to go. I was an adult…I had just walked out…2 minutes ago we were all standing at his side…I could do this…I should do this…I pushed the door open and walked in.
It would have been rude not to have said something, it was his room, he was still there. “Larry, we forgot your dog.” “Larry, we all love you, you are surrounded by love, good by, Larry.” This I said as I walked to his bedside, saw the little stuffed green dog with the dgorji around his neck that I’d brought for him from my recent trip to Bhutan to keep the evil spirits away and to bring him power. I turned and walked out the door, again, alone this time.
Earlier when BY, Ron’s right hand guy and long time friend, was packing up Larry’s things he’d grabbed the neck pillow from the bed, I’d noticed the dog on his pillow and thought, let’s not forget the dog, but neglected to say anything. Now here I was alone in the room to get the dog. Another big sigh.
When I got back to the elevator, everyone was waiting for me and again we all got back in, pushed the button and there was a bit of a group chuckle. Khun Nuk asked, without looking at me, “where you scared? Is your heart beating faster? You were just standing there touching him and now you were scared, weren’t you?” Everyone knew what I’d done. They all knew I had been scared. We were sad and yet still were able to find the funny.
I met Ron and BY right after work. Khun Nuk was there already. She’d been there for the last 6 weeks since Larry admitted himself, ready to die. She slept next to him on the vinyl upholstered bench. Jeup came from work, too and stayed by Nuk’s side, helping her, translating for her, staying close as Asian girls do., holding hands, cooing, not an inch between them. Derek had come a bit later from work and then Surenteep, someone the guys had met years ago but I didn’t recognize him when he walked into the room. And then a woman who no one knew came in sat and wept. We were 3 Thai women, 1 Thai man, 2 Singaporean men and 3 white Americans, Larry, my husband and me.
We stood at his bedside, sat quietly, talking, laughing, crying, holding his hand, speaking to him, comforting his new and very young wife Nuk. For hours we stayed on this last night of his life. It was the end. The doctors didn’t think he’d make it thru the night. In the room with us was a machine checking his vitals. His blood pressure and his heart beat. When we had arrived his heart beat was at 90 and his blood pressure was about 60 over 40. With an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth and an IV in his arm dripping saline solution Larry laid there, periodically gasping for air. He’d been in a coma for about 24 hours. The doctor said it could be any moment but for sure by tomorrow.
Ron had just returned this morning from Amsterdam and was tired and hungry. He hadn’t eaten lunch and now we’d skipped dinner and we had nothing to drink. Since we were at Bumrungrad, the 5 star hospital in Bangkok, I suggested Ron go downstairs and get something to eat or a bottle of wine so we could drink to Larry. Just last week Nuk had brought in Larry’s last bottle of Silver Oak and the guys fed it to him through a syringe usually used for liquid medicines. He’d had 4 syringes, one after the other before he’d said “enough.” They say that the next day, he seemed a bit fatigued, in other words, hung over. These guys!
So we sat, no one wanting to leave the room, no one wanted to miss anything. We watched the machine and listened to it beep. The numbers dropped slowly and steadily over the hours, till they eventually reached a heart beat of 41 with blood pressure of 55 over 39.
At some point the machine could no longer measure his heart rate and we watched the pulse in his neck to make sure he was still alive. His eye lids had opened and his eyes had rolled to the back of his head. His hands were swollen and turning blue as were his feet. We held his hands, rubbed his feet, spoke with love to him, hoping he could here or sense us. We knew he was dead but just waiting for his body to catch up. What a strong heart, what a big hearted man.
I started to worry that the guys had to go to work in the morning and that we couldn’t stay and wait all night long, no matter how crass or heartless that sounds. Impatience and worry was setting in. We couldn’t leave Khun Nuk here alone, I couldn’t stay and Ron wouldn’t leave me here…what to do?
At around 9 o’clock it occurred to me and of course, I said aloud to the room…why is he wearing the oxygen mask? Isn’t that life support? Everyone started talking. My husband said he’d thought this earlier but didn’t want to say anything. Of course I just blurt it out. BY said, “Yes, and he doesn’t want any life support.” So the conversation started. His vitals had dropped below what the machine could measure and the nurses had come in to check. We asked then if we could remove the mask and they said they’d check with the doctor but that the mask wasn’t doing anything but helping him breathe. So the question was posed and translated from English to Thai but first a cultural translation happened; if we remove the mask will he be able to breathe on his own? They said yes. So again we said, we’d like the mask removed. Nuk is only 29 and these are concepts foreign to her culture but we knew what Larry wanted and it’s completely within our realm so we intervened gently. At first the answer was no. After the nurses left we talked to Nuk and convinced her that it was ok to talk to the doctors again and insist we be able to remove his mask. He’d been periodically gasping for air and we wanted him to go at his own pace with no medical help. Let him go. He was ready.
So Nuk, Jeup and I went to the nurses’ station to talk on the phone to the doctor. Nuk being his wife, Jeup for moral support and to translate to me so I could understand and encourage on Larry’s behalf we all stood at the counter as a united front. At about 9:45 the nurse finally said, go ahead, but you have to do it, we won’t. Fine. We walked back in and told the guys. By this time Surenteep and the other Thai weeping woman had gone home, nothing more to do. So the two Thai women, the two Singaporean men, Ron and I stood around his bed and knew what had to be done. Nuk couldn’t do it. I said, BY, you and Ron do it together, that way neither of you have the responsibility of having done it alone. One on each side of him, they together removed his last life support, his oxygen mask. Nuk stood crying, feeling lost, she said. Jeup by her side. I was at the end of the bed lost in my own thoughts. BY unplugged the oxygen and the room went silent for the first time in weeks. No machines, no life support. We all moved in closer to watch his gentle breathing, his barely noticeable pulse in his neck and waited. 15 minutes later again the nurses came in to check with a stethoscope for a pulse. Three of them, one at his neck, one at his groin and one with her hand on his heart; and at 10:05 we collectively decided he was gone.
The doctor came in to pronounce him officially dead. Decisions were made as to who would shave him, clean him, dress him and they left, the nurses, the doctor. We talked for a moment about how removing the mask was obviously the right thing to do. I was angry that it had taken us so long to realize it. Ron said he thought that Larry had relaxed more after we’d removed it. He had seemed calmer, more peaceful. We had done the right thing, it just took us a bit to figure it out. Larry would have been proud and had probably been waiting for us to figure it out.
The six of us walked out of the room, carrying all his belongings in plastic bags, nothing more to say. It was over. We walked to the elevator in a group, our heads down, not looking up at the people we passed, all lost in our own thoughts. We reached the elevator, when Nuk said…the dog! And I was able to face my fears.
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