It’s Tuesday today, but I forgot to post a couple of days ago and since that was the end of the current chapter in a fairly uninteresting story, I suppose I should write about it. On Saturday it was decided that one of my siblings and I would pretend to be family elders and discuss with my uncle what his actual views are and whether he was in a fit condition to make a call at all. It soon became clear that he completely understood everything, and was fairly aware of the risks of going through with the surgery and of not going through with it. And he definitely seemed to prefer not to. We asked him this a few times, recorded his responses (just in case), and then told his sons and wife what he’d said. There was a general sigh of relief – the decision was a horrible one for the family as they also did not think he was strong enough to survive a quadruple bypass, and once this assurance was received, they collectively decided to discharge him, force some lifestyle changes, and return later if it seemed he was strong enough to go through it. So we left, having done a fairly difficult job, and hoping that it was the right thing to have done. We were very clear that our role was only to elicit and convey his views without the emotional involvement of immediate family, but it’s still a difficult role to be in, and if things don’t go well, might lead to regret and recriminations.
It’s a funny contrast, my life in Pakistan and my life out of Pakistan.