In the hospital, I spent several Spring Festivals accompanying a patient. I also experienced two in the ICU. The things that happen in hospitals really grind humanity down to the ground, leaving a feeling of blood everywhere, and you feel helpless, only able to walk around it. Move past it. Earn more money, or exercise more to prevent issues, or pray for better genes and luck. Buy some commercial insurance.
It's understandable if you can't afford treatment, but it's hard to comprehend when someone with money gives up on treatment.
An elderly lady had many children and was wealthy (probably from the construction materials business, not in recent years, but before 2019). She had a bowel obstruction at over 70 years old, dressed fashionably and appropriately, and had likely been resuscitated in the ICU, with no immediate danger to her life. It seemed she needed surgery, but it wasn't done, perhaps due to a poor prognosis? Or maybe the complications of a stoma bag were too troublesome? They were observing her in the ward; the elderly lady was drinking a little water, still occasionally sipping, often groaning. Her daughter-in-law was watching TV during the day, laughing heartily, as if no one in the ward was related to her.
I rented a folding bed and stayed in the hospital ward. I observed the activity in the ward. There were a total of four or three beds. This elderly lady with a bowel obstruction was in the second bed near the south window, with the head of the bed facing east. It seemed her son was constantly calling people, and every day someone came to visit her. Many grandchildren in college were also called over.
On what seemed to be the last day, the room was filled with her relatives and friends, but they weren't there to save her; they were waiting for her to die. Perhaps this was the elderly lady's wish; as more relatives arrived, the bowel obstruction was changed to bowel cancer. The pain relief medication, whether it was morphine or something else, was no longer administered. The elderly lady groaned, and there was possibly a device for treating the bowel obstruction that was originally clear but had turned brownish-yellow; the whole room seemed to smell of bile. Her daughter-in-law, during the day, cruelly removed the oxygen mask and breathing tube, but some advised against it, while others suggested bringing in some sweet potato leaves that the elderly lady liked to eat when she was younger, which would only cause more blockage, I thought. But I didn't say anything; I thought someone would think of it. But no one did.
At around eight or nine in the evening, I opened the folding bed, but with so many people in the room, I couldn't sleep, so I just sat there. The elderly lady's relatives and friends, some of whom I hadn't seen often, started chatting. More than ten people made the room quite noisy, and later the doctor asked that not so many people stay in the room, allowing only one or two family members. The doctor came several times, one of which was to confirm the decision to give up treatment and asked the elderly lady's son to sign. Several times they asked if they really wouldn't administer some kind of pain relief medication. They wouldn't. At around three or four in the morning, the elderly lady's daughter-in-law removed the oxygen mask. The lights were on, and I couldn't sleep. It was tormenting for me as well. I waited silently.
At 4:00 AM, the elderly lady could no longer hold on; she stopped breathing, and her daughter-in-law cried out. Relatives outside the ward heard and came in, and then there was a chorus of cries. The doctor also came and asked us to move to another ward. In the other ward, the cries could still be heard, like wailing. Mixed in were faint words about changing into burial clothes, coming out of the ward, then into the corridor, and then disappearing into the darkness outside the building. They probably didn't go to the morgue but went straight to the funeral home.
The next day, the sun rose as usual, and I got up at seven-thirty to pack up the folding bed so as not to hinder the hospital's cleaning.
Dickens said at the beginning of "A Tale of Two Cities": "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity... it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair... we had everything before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way."