The Last Bet

Do people change?  In this, the third of four in a series on the people who stand by the bedside of those with terminal cancer, we reflect on this question.  I visited this patient at the hospital and asked him why, after five years, he reverted to gambling.  This is his story:

In the Hospital Ward

He had been a gambler and an alcoholic, a poor husband and a lesser father.  But was he a gambling man?  He did not think so, not when his life was at stake.  Yet, he had gambled again, one last time.

The bet had been a few dollars, barely enough to buy a meal.  If he had won, he would have had millions, but if he lost, he would lose his family - their faith and belief that he had truly changed.

At Home

The family was at a loss.  He had not called and they did not know where he was.  He was suffering from liver cirrhosis and liver cancer.  His failing liver made him prone to falling into a semi-comatose state.

When he became sick, the family made a pact to change, to treat him better and to shower him with love and care.  They did…they brought him to places and did for him things they would not have done before.  But still, memories of the past were hard to erase.

The telephone rang.  It was the hospital.  They could not believe their ears when they learnt where he had collapsed.

In the Hospital Ward

He waited.  He knew when they came what he would see in their eyes.  Disappointment.  Anger.  Betrayal.

He had not always been a gambler.  It was just a few bets here and there.  Then it stuck and before he knew it, he just didn’t know how to stop.  It was the same for his drinking.  A few drinks to pass the evenings became a few drinks he had to have every day.

But he had changed.  Five years ago, he gave it all up.  He tried to make up to his family for all the lost years, the pain they had to go through.  He believed he had changed, but his family, perhaps gone too far in past hurts, did not believe.  He wanted more time.

At Home

He was semi-conscious, recovering from another blackout.  His family thought he could not hear them, but he could.  They were talking about money for his medical care.  If he could cry, he would.  Then his wife took out some savings she had - money she had set aside for his funeral expenses.

He was sad.  How could they have come to this situation?

He had been a gambler, but he was not a gambling man.  But it was all he could do, the only thing he knew how to do.  He decided to place one last bet.

TOTO Queue

The crowd was excited, on edge.  It was one of the special draws with an especially large jackpot.  The queue was long, the day hot, the air stuffy.  The crowd stared curiously at the man shuffling slowly with them in the slow-moving queue.  Some shook their heads.  He was obviously sick but once a gambler, always a gambler.

In the Hospital Ward

His family came.  He saw their disappointment, anger and sense of betrayal.  But he did not blame them.  He had wanted one last chance at the gambling table for them.  One last chance to give them a life he had failed to give them.  They would not understand this.

What was sad was that it was all for nothing.

He had collapsed before he was even near the punter.  He never did place his last bet.  He did not leave the hospital and died a month later, the gambling queue one of his last memories.

Reflections

• As caregivers of the terminally ill, we may need to consider that at times the patient also wants to care for us, do things for us, love us.
• Their guilt at dying is perhaps as great as our guilt at letting them die, or our sorrow at letting them go.

By Sister Geraldine Tan, Administrator, St Joseph’s Home & Hospice