Euthanasia

“Thanks Dr. Pedraja for saving my daughter’s life.” “I owe you my life.” “Thank you for the second chance, Dr. Pedraja.”

Those are some of the lines I usually hear from my patients or from my patient’s relatives. Hearing those words helps me feel relaxed after the day’s work. Saving lives has been my responsibility ever since. Maybe it is innate. I have always desired to become a doctor. I am pro-life. I am totally not in accordance with abortion. But when it comes to euthanasia or killing out of mercy, my stance toward life changes.

For years, I have cured many patients, operated on some, and tried to tend to all of their needs. All of them were treated but sadly, a few were not totally healed. Some stayed comatose. They were still breathing, but there was no certainty that they would still wake up. Guess what I did? It seemed that there was some kind of a demonic spirit that consumed me every time a patient of mine was in a dying state, no chance to recover. I usually killed patients. Out of mercy. Continuous increase in hospital bills might be a minor reason. I just desired to suppress his suffering. To relieve his pain. Pain was unavoidable. But seeing someone in grief continuously wounded my emotionally weak heart. I am pro-life. It is really hard for me to personally kill someone. Failure to salvage someone kills me too.

As much as possible, I always try my best not to get to the point in which I have to kill. My mind and my heart have always been pre-occupied with my patients and their health conditions. I am pre-occupied with them that I have neglected my family’s health status. I never knew that my son’s life was in trouble.

I was late. To know everything. I was so insensitive. To learn about my son’s sickness. Too late to cure him. To tend to him. I hated myself. I hate myself. And I shall continue to hate myself. Because of that. There is no one to blame except for myself.

Like some of my patients, my son belonged to those unlucky people who were innocent to get themselves killed. By me. I have done my best to operate on him. To bad, I still failed. For weeks, he has been sleeping. Thanks to the machine that continued to sustain his life.

I know there was no more chance for second life. So this demonic spirit was trying very hard to consume me again. But I continued resisting it. For the first time, I hated to kill. How could I? It’s my son! My flesh. My blood.

Now, I learned about my patients’ relatives’ feelings everytime they are about to unplug the most important machine of all. I was so unfair. I always convinced my patients relatives to turn off the machine. But I myself couldn’t.

So my wife decided for me. She told me that ir I were not to pull the plug, then she would do it for me.

I didn’t want to see her hand getting dirty. So I decided too. I pulled the plug. And I immediately left my profession. And promised not to kill anymore.

And everything about me changed.

Except for this simple truth:

I was Dr. Ronnie Pedraja. I was pro-life. And once in my life, a part of my past haunts me. I was once a certified notorious killer.