Quality over Quantity

 21st July 2025       Day 23228

My mother-in-law turns 95 next month. 

She had a medical emergency on 02 July and was rushed to GKNM Hospital, where she spent 17 days and returned home on 19th July. Of those 17 days at GKNM, she was in ICU for 5 days and in a very comfortable private room for the remaining days. 

All in the family are rejoicing her return home……and wishing that she be the centurion in the family! 

She is hooked into an Oxygen concentrator, a BiPAP machine, a Nebulizer, an Oxymeter, a catheter and a potpourri of 17 oral solid dosage medicines and an array of syrups, lotions and creams. She is lying prone on an airbed, with diapers and underpads. Her plumbing mechanisms are down and hence needs assistance to manage her liquid and solid excretion. 

Is this LIFE? Is this the “quality” of life that we would wish on our beloved family member? However much others in the family may urge you to do to “extend” her lifetime, do they even fathom what she has to endure? The ignominy, the pain, the distress and the sheer helplessness? And also the very important aspect of the many challenges that the caregivers have to experience? 

She is a woman who enjoys playing Sudoku and word games like Quordle and Wordle on her Samsung tablet. She enjoys writing messages that spell out her vivid imaginations related to images of flowers in the Karaikudi Brigade WhatsApp group. She enjoys tasty food, pickles,.spiced papads, ghee etc. She does her finger mudras for all aspects of health. She relishes a few Tamil TV serials a d also a few programs on TV that show live temple rituals and shlokas etc. She enjoys mathematics as a subject. She loves watching English news on TV. She used to walk twice a day albeit with a walker for support. This is the Shyamala Gopal we know. Living her life to the fullest. 

Does sheer quantity (number of additional days alive) override the aspect of quality? How long will you tinker around with a beat up car and keep repairing it…and when will you trade it in for a new vehicle? 

Life does not mean just staying alive and breathing…it means that we experience all aspects of life to the fullest and truly staying “alive”. 

Let us wish that everyone lives their life to the fullest and richest experience. Let us not merely wish that they live longer…..let them live to the fullest. 

Live Life To The Maximum!