The Dilemma
“I’m sorry,
but there’s nothing else we can do. Our
goal now is to make him as comfortable as possible until the end.” The doctor stood at the child’s bedside,
uttering the words as gently as possible, terrible words that no parent ever
imagines hearing. The tiny, frail little
boy had just celebrated his first birthday
- if you can call lying in a hospital bed hooked up to monitors and
tubes a celebration – and had long ago been labeled “Failure to Thrive.” The disease that raged through his fragile
body during his first year of life had simply been too much of a struggle for
him to continue fighting. He had given
up on his desire to live, and now, apparently, the doctors were giving up as
well.
