Letting Go

Like everyone else, cancer patients die in a variety of ways. But more often than not, those deaths are long, protracted, and agonizing. Sometimes the vicious cycles of chemotherapy and radiation and surgery simply fail to capture the rapidly mutating cells and the body ultimately shuts down system by system. The kidneys fail, the lungs need support, and the bowel stops functioning. Other times, the patients – hopefully with the support of their families – decide to stop pursuing treatments, and opt instead to die on their own terms and in their own homes. And too often the diagnosis is made too late, and someone who wants to fight the good fight isn’t really given that option – the war has been raging secretly inside for who knows how long, and it’s outcome is already decided. To fight is futile.

I’ve witnessed all of these this past month, and I’m not sure which one is worst. But I am sure of this – at some point we have to let go.

All month while serving on the thoracic surgical oncology team, I found myself battling an old demon in a new context, and that was the memory of my grandmother. A British nurse during WWII, she met and married my grandfather, a US Army soldier stationed in England. They would eventually move to the states and raise their five children, and I have countless happy memories of them together and of her in particular. She always said that he was her best friend, and that’s what made their marriage work for such a long time. My best friend, she would sometimes say. When he died she was devastated, and moved in with our family for a number of years. A lifetime smoker, she died of complications from lung cancer a few years later.

Her death was not a pleasant one. While she did not have surgery on her lungs, she did endure all the other torments of a long fight against cancer. She held on and fought for a long time – long enough, in fact, to see all of her children. On her final day, she did not die until she had seen all of her children one last time. All of them. Only then was she ready to go – and so she went. She slipped into that eternal unconsciousness the moment she decided to let go.

It’s never easy to let go. But when the time is right, there is no better thing to do. And so…let go.