When the wish to live is gone

There are times when the elderly no longer want to live and they would rather die. The will to live may go away due to a variety of reasons, including the loss of a partner, financial reasons, health issues and family trouble.

This happened to an acquaintance of mine whose mother gave up on life, even though she was recovering well from a heart ailment.

Mrs Indrani Bagchi, 67, used to live in Faridabad with her husband. Their son, Nitesh, worked at a multinational firm as a corporate analyst in Gurgaon. He was married and had taken up a flat in Gurgaon, but he regularly used to visit his mother ever since his father died two years back.

Nitesh recalled that in the days leading up to her death, she had seemed disinterested with what was going on around her. In fact, she would give monosyllabic answers to whatever Nitesh had to say.

A fortnight before she passed away, Nitesh had gone to visit his mother and saw that her medicines were not kept systematically, the cat had not been fed and there was little food in the refrigerator.

He was taken aback since he had provided all her medicines and stocked up the refrigerator before leaving her. He even noticed that though there was cat food readily available at home, the cat looked malnourished.

Nitesh asked Indrani about it, but she just nodded her head. Her responses were not very forthcoming.

A worried Nitesh also noticed that his mother was looking pale so he decided to take her to the nearest hospital, where tests revealed that her heart ailment had taken a turn for the worse and she now needed a pacemaker.

Indrani did not take much interest to what the cardiologist was saying. The cardiologist separately spoke to Nitesh and told him that it was going to be a difficult operation, with the chances of complete recovery being slim. He explained that putting in the pacemaker was the best solution at this point of time.

The doctor also advised that Indrani should meet her near and dear ones before the operation.

So, Nitesh called up his sister in the US who said that it was not immediately possible for her to fly down. Nitesh had to alone shoulder that responsibility.

Two days later, the operation was successfully held on Indrani. But, Nitesh noticed that when she was shifted out of the ICU to her room, she seemed reluctant to walk even though it had advised by the doctor.

The nurses also said that she was not eating her meals properly. Her fluid intake was low. She generally seemed disinterested.

Nitesh spoke to the cardiologist who assured him that the pacemaker was working fine. It was just that Indrani was disinterested in life.

To cheer her up, Nitesh asked his relatives and Indrani’s friends to drop by. They did come. However, all of them said that Indrani was not interested in holding a conversation with them.

In the meantime, Nitesh’s sister said that she had to decided to fly down to meet their mother.

By now, Nitesh was quite unsure whether his sister will be able to make it in time to meet their mother.

His worst fears came true as his mother died hours before his sister’s flight landed at the IGI airport in Delhi.

Nitesh later said that there were small signs that indicated his mother was no longer interested in living. Her lack of response to his queries, lack of interest in eating, lack of interest in their pet and lack of interest in one’s own health.

He said that had he understood those signs in advance, he would perhaps have taken her to a psychologist even before taking her to a cardiologist.

He advises that one must keep their ears and eyes open while dealing with elderly parents so that they can take prompt steps the moment they realise that something is wrong.

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