Reflections on Death Perspectives

Comment 1

I work as oncology and death can occur at any time to my patients. I usually offer a bit of anti-anxiety medication since an impending death may not always be welcomed. Some patients transitioning into the actively dying stage, living becomes exhausting. They become tired, weak, struggling to eat, they feel uncomfortable, and even after chemotherapy, they struggle to taste. Mostly I deal with Hospice patients, and a potential patient death usually waits for me each time I clock in.

My death view was shaped a long time before I joined nursing. During my childhood, I watched cancer eating away as well as taking the majority of my family members. I even have watched my closest friend struggle with cancer currently. After graduating from nursing school, offering back to the oncology community was the only logical thing I could do. The experience has enabled me to empathize with my patients as well as their families. My view on death involves overwhelming sadness, heart-wrenching as well as anxiety-inducing. After working with my oncology patients, my view of death has changed to a more peaceful perspective.

One day death will occur to each of us. Through working in the oncology, I have realized that accepting death as a part of life have assisted me to live more fully (Foss, 2015). My fear of death has been eased through believing that there is life after death.

Comment 2

Suicide, whether it be done by a mentally ill person or a mentally healthy person, has become a common discussion. During my nursing internship, a nurse that I was working with and I walked in to check up on a patient and found that she had committed suicide in her bathroom. Till this day I wonder what caused her to feel that life was not worth living anymore? According to Bioethics A Primer for Christians, “Within the story of my life I have the relative freedom of a creature, but it is not simply “my” life to do with as I please”. I agree with the author. As creatures of God we are given the chance to decide many things, but one does not have the right to choose if one should live or die since we are not the creator. Instead, one should seek help from our creator and others to deal with the difficulties that may arise in our lives instead of deciding to end it all.

The Author goes on to say, “Understanding compassion and care in this way, we seek to learn to stand with and beside those who suffer — with them as an equal, not as a lord over life and death, but determined not to abandon them as they live out their personal histories up against that limit of death which we all share. For us, therefore, the governing imperative should be not “minimize suffering, “but “maximize care.” Again, I agree with the author, we are not the creator to decide who lives or dies. Watching someone suffer is difficult but one can help the person by providing comfort and care.