Hope this doesn't trigger anyone. If hearing about death bothers you, please stop reading.
My beloved dad died of cancer about 17 years ago. It was a brutal cancer. There was a brutal surgery. He suffered hugely 2 years, but then when he went it was quick and sudden. I came out of a class and my H had our one year old daughter and said we need to leave this second. It's dad. I knew.
We drove 4 hours and got there just as they took him off life support. The other family left because they had been there earlier. H and I stayed.
My dad began to take agonal breaths. I won't say much more except that this is a sound you never want to hear. They become further and further apart until the person is dead. Between each one you think, that's it, it's over, but then a part of you prays that it won't be.
I think this is how you stop caring. How you give up. How you throw in the towel. You accept the reality. You see the death, you hear it, you feel it. But it isn't swift, even when it is. And those moments between the agonal breaths make you agonize about whether you want it to end or not.
Your feelings will probably cycle back. You will probably care again. But then you will hear another agonal breath. Either the patient will make it or he won't, but you will feel the life and the death every moment until the end is the inescapable reality.
What is one of the greatest joys of my life? That I was there, that I held his hand, that I cried with him as he left this earth.
