Dealing With Death

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In a previous entry I detailed some of the restrictions that cancer has caused.  Here I would like to deal with the daily life of dealing with death.  I will get to the most difficult part first. In October my oncologist suggested that I had a year to live. He was reluctant to be that specific but I was pretty sick and wanted to know what I had to prepare for.  A statement like that was a shock, though not as much as I had thought it might be.  It was a bombshell to my family. I worked to manage their emotions more than I did mine. The children were upset. The two children with young families had to prepare their children for the eventuality that I would be very sick and die.  My brothers and wives were worried. During October and November all of them visited. We had wonderful times—laughing, remembering, discussing what this meant.  It all was very pleasant.  The chemo’s effectiveness has for now taken a lot of the emotional fear away and things are much more normal for now.  It is surprising how the discussions at home have a way of showing up here.  Over Christmas my grandson was very blunt—Was the cancer still inside me? How did the medicine get into me?  He is 6. We had a short but clear discussion as I answered his questions. At my last chemo session I had a picture taken showing the medicine bottle hanging above me and the needle going into my vein so he could see how the drip procedure worked. 

The news of my demise did not frighten me.  I have had 8 years to come to terms with this cancer. I have been fortunate to have had all those years.  My Gleason score was 9. Many victims who have that score do not live this long. I am not sure why I am not afraid but I am not.  One of my daughters asked me about this and I compared myself to one friend whose wife had a heart attack after no apparent symptoms and was gone in an afternoon. I also mentioned a young couple who were pregnant for the first time. The baby suddenly was born at 24 weeks, living only two hours.  Another young couple lost their 20-year old son to what was something akin to sudden infant death syndrome.  Compared to those three heartbreaks and the trauma of them, my news is much easier to deal with.  I even have a good bit of my funeral service worked out.

But I have to tell you that I don’t dwell on death. I dwell on today.  I have things to do. I don’t spend a lot of time on what I have to get done before I die. My affairs are in order. I spend time on joy and satisfaction and communities I belong to.  I lead a photography club, I rock climb, I had led a campaign to erect a sign for a significant historical site near our home.  I recently led a Strategic Planning session, the first one I have ever led. I post every day an “early morning” photograph of some feature within several miles of our house.  I do my best to just accept the limitations that come my way.  Years ago on a plane ticket packet an travel agency had written “The experienced traveller accepts all difficulties calmly.”  I have taken that sentiment to heart.

Cancer gives strange gifts. One of them is the discovery of resilience in yourself. I can do this. I can manage this. I am not put down by this. I will go on.  It is a wonderful feeling to be free of fear. It reminds me of the same sentiment as expressed by Ernest Hemingway in his story “The short happy life of Francis Macomber.”  Another is the outpouring of support, from friends and family all over the U.S. and from various places around the world. I send out an email after my sessions with the oncologist. (These sessions are the only ones fraught with tension:  I have the lab PSA test in the morning. See him in the afternoon. We read the result together. My heart is in my throat as we turn to that number. Will it be up or down?  My blood pressure is always 20 points higher before these meetings.)  Over the years the list has grown mightily from just my immediate family to friends, nieces, nephews, even grandchildren of my brothers. And I hear back from them.  Those messages are so important.  Just a few words of happy cheer if the numbers are down or messages to keep on fighting.  I love them.  One of  my nieces sent me one written entirely in emoticons.  If I can figure out how to get it into this entry, I will. It was so creative.

In spite of my comments about not being afraid and being able to manage the news, I discovered over the Christmas holiday that something else has been at work.  During the holiday all the family was here including the sister of a daughter-in-law and her child. For Christmas dinner we had 18 people. During this time I talked, laughed, danced, sang, took kids sledding and immersed myself in the love in the air.  After they all left I felt strangely light. I had expected to be depressed as the house returned to the quiet of 70-year olds moving around.  But instead I felt liberated.  I explained to my wife that it felt like the cancer had caused a sludge to settle in me. The worries. The restrictions. The repetitions. I had often been irritable during the time after each chemo session. The onslaught of love and activity swept all that sludge away.  It is gone. God, it feels good. My step has more spring. I don’t expect some limitation to happen. Instead I am ready to go forward.  I have put off writing these blog entries for weeks. Now here they are.

Will I be dead in a year?  I don’t know. I hope I have explained myself. I don’t dwell on it. For a while I dwelt on the effect that it would have on say grandchildren. That was too emotional. I quit that.  Then my four-year old granddaughter’s great grandmother on the other side died.  She told me that what happened when you died was that they took you to the cemetery.  That was that. 

If I worry about anyone it is Mary who carries more of the burden of daily life here. Actually I am learning a whole lot more about things around the house that I have let her take care of.  I just can’t sit around and watch her work.  It feels good to get into the household routine. But I try to ease her concerns and worry, mostly by listening when they surface as they periodically do. As with me she needs some changes that make her life easier. We have purchased new furniture for her office, dramatically upgraded our music system, changed some of the way we do laundry. Little things I know, but each of us must deal with the daily and long range concerns of terminal cancer.  What can I say? She has thrown herself into a dietary routine that should help both of us. We work out together. We talk and laugh, always laugh. How lucky I am.