The following arrived yesterday from a no-reply email address and with no identifier other than “Anonymous.” I believe this is from the same “Anonymous” who posted at Joel’s Gulch the other day and posted here one time more than a year ago, again surrounding himself with privacy protections.
I have no way of verifying any of this. But I don’t need to. It rings true.
So I’ll just say thank you, Anonymous, and hope you enjoy every possible moment of the rest of your life. As crusty old Elias Alias would say — Salute!
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From Anonymous:
Claire, I was going to post this as a comment to today’s (Aug 1st) blog entry but decided to send it via anonymous email instead because of its length and rambling nature. You may do with it whatever you like.
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I am also one who was supposed to make a complete recovery from cancer surgery and then get on with my life. Didn’t work out that way though.
Several months following the removal of a kidney, cancer was discovered in my lymph nodes. My oncologist suggested an aggressive chemo protocol but warned me that “a cure is unlikely.” Following four months of treatment a PET scan revealed that some of the tumors had been reduced significantly while others had shown less shrinkage. The side effects of the treatment were very unpleasant, especially for someone like me who has been a vigorous outdoor person all my life. The drugs had had negative effects on on my remaining kidney so the second round of treatment involved only a single drug and was not expected to be as effective as the first round. After several treatments I told my oncologist that I did not want to spend the rest of my life feeling as bad as the treatment was making me feel. She suggested I take a
treatment holiday and make a road trip to visit family several months sooner than I had been planning on. I will be leaving for Arizona in a couple of weeks after the side effects have diminished somewhat.
So where am I going with this tale? Not sure.
I am going to die soon but oddly enough I am OK with that. How soon? Nobody seems willing to speculate, but sooner rather than later seems to be expected. I am appreciating all the things I’ve loved about life a lot more lately. Walks in the woods with my dogs, sunrises and sunsets, good food and good friends all seem more precious to me now. The trials and tribulations of life all seem so insignificant. Things that used to make me crazy I can easily ignore. Since I have only a short time left I intend to get the most out of it regardless of what others think I should be doing.
When I told my doctor I wanted a DNR order she thought that was “very brave”. Other people have used that word with regard to my attitude also. All I can say is that it doesn’t feel that way to me. I am just trying to make the most rational decisions I can with the data I have. Someone close to me says it’s negative thinking and if I think positive, happy thoughts I might recover. If irrational thinking is what it takes to recover I’d rather go to my grave clear headed. That fits with my quality vs quantity philosophy I think.
Finally it is my intention to die at home in the company of my dogs and loved ones. Dying in a hospital would be more unpleasant (for me and everyone else close to me) than necessary in my opinion and I’ll not be going that route if I can help it (and I’m confidant that I can).
In closing let me say that your blog and Joel’s are great sources of enjoyment for me and have been for years. Thanks for that. I’ll be reading them and commenting occasionally until the end, whenever that is.
Very thought provoking. I wonder how many people would issue a DNR?
On another note, take a look at what I wrote for a forum. It has to do with a Samsung Alert.
Shades of 1984s!!!! If a generic hacker could do this, with these new TVs being able to connect to the Internet by themselves, think what the government could do.
http://money.cnn.com/2013/08/01/technology/security/tv-hack/index.html?iid=HP_River
To Anonymous: You are free…
You are doing the most envious thing on this earth – enjoying your life to its fullest. Few of us take the time to do that, or recognize how to do that.
I wish you “luck” – minimal pain, pleasure in each breath, and the fullest use of your senses as you go about your daily life.
The contributor is a very brave person.
Had a close friend diagnosed with some type of lymphatic cancer after it had metastized throughout his body. Doc’s gave him 12-18 months to live. 12 months if he did nothing, 18 months if he tried some new, expirimental chemo drugs. There was no hope to save him. His choice really was 12 months of deterioration and pain or 18 months of pain and suffering, die anyways. He shose the 12 month plan, went home, spent time with his family and died on his terms.
When the time comes I hope I have that kind off bravery.
If you are not dying, but would like to have the opportunity to experience something that can certainly help you re-evaluate your life and appreciate what you have, consider becoming a hospice volunteer.
Please consider hospice care if you have been diagnosed with a terminal condition. I spent 14 years as a hospice nurse, and most of our clients found great value in it. Hospice is not only patient centered, it is family/significant others centered.
For more information: http://www.odsyhealth.com/default.asp
Hospice is a compassionate, patient-centered approach to enhance the quality of life and support for people at the end of life and their families. Hospice care is focused on maintaining dignity, increasing quality of life, and providing comfort, including pain and symptom management. Hospice care is for patients with a variety of diagnoses, including heart disease, stroke, liver disease, Alzheimer’s disease and cancer.
I read this piece when I got home from my 8th ER visit in the past year, and it really struck a nerve. Without going into the details, I suffer from an ailment non-terminable but also non-curable and non-treatable. When overtaken by an episode, its not uncommon for me to lose 10% of my body weight in 24 hours via continual emesis. It ain’t much fun.
As I was laying in the ER getting rehydrated, I began to despair over the prospect of going through this when I’m 70 or 80 years old. The psychological aspect apart, the physical tax is an awful burden to bear. I’ve thought this before, but the other day it was really bothering me.
Then I read Anonymous’ moving post and started thinking again. The despair I was feeling over my own petty suffering evaporated as for the first time I really considered my own mortality, through his eyes.
I’m not near eloquent enough to put though to word worth reading, so my dog and I are going for a nice long walk in the woods today.
Thank you Anonymous.
I will second ML’s comments on Hospice.
Here, where I am, it’s called Palliative Care. I wish my Mother had gotten into the program when she was of sound mind. It would have made things so much easier-not that the death of a loved one is easy-not just for us, but for her. She could have gone at home, in her own bed, with those she wanted to be with, instead of in a hospital room.
It is, IMO, a very valuable method of helping patients and families deal with the coming death and for aiding the patient to die on thier terms, with dignity.
Sorry, got caught up in my own shit there for a second…
Thank you, Anonymous, for sharing.
Although I’ve mentioned it before, Harold S. Kushner wrote When Bad Things Happen to Good People http://www.amazon.com/When-Things-Happen-Good-People/dp/1400034728/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375463496&sr=8-1&keywords=when+bad+things+happen+to+good+people about his son’s disease, progeria http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progeria which makes people look like they’re 80 when they’re 10. I found it wonderfully consoling after a bad event.
All of us know intellectually we’re dying. I learned the easy way that it’s no longer an intellectual exercise if we know specifics. I recently had prostate biopsies (accompanied by a little “snip” for each) which mercifully were negative, but I wasn’t expecting a good outcome, so I was forced to do some serious thinking about the subject. I find Anonymous’ wish to be around his dogs particularly moving. I wonder sometimes if they understand death better than we do.
In some ways it’s a luxury to be able to reach the acceptance stage of the grief process, even though see-sawing back and forth is inevitable. With our collapsing society, one of my fears is that many people may die in very unpleasant circumstances and never get through any of the stages. Anonymous, I thank you too for sharing.
And I don’t think you’d mind a humorous “DNR” story. In the first part of 1989, I think, in Louisville KY, a homeless man was treated in the university hospital emergency room for superficial head injuries. On his large white bandage the ER resident wrote “DNR” and “if any problems, call Sal” with a phone number which was that of his attending physician. The picture of the man sitting on a park bench hit the front page of the local paper. According to the article, the resident was suffering from “burn out” and was given two extra months of residency.
I forgot to thank “anonymous” too. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks Claire and the person who sent this in. I’d noted the initial comment and Claire’s reply over at Joel’s blog – I appreciate the follow-up. Having watched a handful or so of cases over the last decade has brought some of this to mind for me over that time. Whatever confidence I may have had at one time in the medical/health establishment has worn down to a thin nub. I’m coming to a view that chemo and radiation ‘therapy’ will be regarded as barbarous within several generations. (I readily admit that I have no specialised knowledge to back up that statement – that’s just an observation based on the cases I’ve seen and heard of)
Another site that I follow – Cryptogon.com (more for ‘news’ – but Kevin also covers topics relating to health and the state of medical research and treatment) – has for some years now put forward some material that seemed to suggest some serious benefit from strong doses of hemp oil. I’m very skeptical of the idea – but it does keep coming up more and more on my radar – and it certainly seems less harmful that standard chemo and radiation.
I’m just bringing this up in case the notion might be of use to someone reading this. I can provide a link or two – if you’d like, Claire.
Plug Nickel Outfit — Link away. WordPress might send your comment to the spam filter because of the links, but I’ll watch for it and approve it.
I know chemo and radiation have helped a lot of people. But in my only two up-close experiences, the people ended up suffering worse from the treatment than the disease before dying.
My friend J., who died in April, fought the proverbial (and down-the-line mainstream) fight against pancreatic cancer with six months of chemo followed by five weeks of daily radiation treatments. In the end, that sweet soul was angry and bitter that she had gone through all that for nothing instead of just living out her life.
In the last three weeks, she had only palliative care at home, both from hospice and from her devoted partner of 38 years.
That said, there’s also one hell of a lot of b*llsh*t alternative treatments out there. Along with a few that have given amazing results.
Frankly – the best way to get a look at the general idea might be to use a search engine and the terms “rick simpson” and “hemp”. His site comes up early in the results and there seems to be a ton of information available. I’m not convinced of the quality of the info – but some of the results people bring up seem promising – particularly when compared with what I’ve seen of the mainstream approach. I’m pretty sure that marijuana can offer a lot of usefulness in terms of palliative care – but it does almost strike me as too convenient that some are pushing for curative effects – particularly against the dramatically deadly diseases.
Saw this article last night – kinda’ hints at the relationship between palliative and curative:
Digest this: Cure for cancer may live in our intestines
I’m reminded of a quote that I lost the specifics of some years ago – but I think it applies and hope my paraphrase will do it justice:
A wise person approaches and comports themself at the ‘table of life’ in such a way that when it comes time to leave the banquet – they’re fully sated. Whereas a foolish person will never be content at the ‘table of life’ and will inevitably have to go out kicking, screaming, and confused.
I believe it was from some long dead Italian guy – but I haven’t been able to source it online and the notebook it may be written it is deeply buried in a box – somewhere…
My partner, Teresa, had lung cancer, found in January, started chemo and radiation in May, scheduled for surgery in September, once in surgery they found her lung was so far gone, FROM THE CHEMO AND RADIATION that they had to take the whole lung instead of just the bottom lobe. My question now is, why did they make her wait for 8 months for the surgery if they could have gotten the small lesion early?
Thanks to the stealth contributor, for letting us hear the comment/story expanded.
It was only after watching close relatives go thru cancer and congestive heart failure that I decided a DNR is what I’d prefer. Sometimes the “cure” made them sicker than than otherwise, I also think I’d prefer not to go that route either.
Death could happen at any second from a multitude of causes. If you have lived your life fully, and as freely as you want to, then death isn’t so scary.
I wish Anon a remaining full and fun life, and an ending of peacefulness.
To add to what others have said regarding alternate cancer treatments. I have heard of people getting help from Essiac tea-my uncle being one of them. Try doing a web search for more info.
I too wish to thank anonymous. I was diagnosed with stage 3 sarcoma in January of this year. I am starting month number 8 for chemo and so far the tumor is non responsive. I start radiation next month.
I am optimistic but not hopeful for my own treatment and recovery. I just to spend as much time with my loved ones too.
Thank you anonymous, good journey and rest well…..
Anonymous, if you’re reading thins:
Think of things this way:
If you’re really terminal, then right now you can do literally anything you want with any fear of the consequences…
Want to know what its like to rob a bank? Go right ahead.
Max out your credit cards, and take a cruise to Antarctica and take your picture with some penguins.
Shoot some endangered animals, make some sandwiches from them and give them away to homeless people in front of PETA’s headquarters.
Know someone who needs to be put in their place? Throw a banana cream pie in their face.
Working at a job you hate? Take a dump on your boss’s desk before you quit.
Want to make a little extra money? Cook some meth like Walter White from “Breaking Bad”.
You’re only limited by your imagination now.
Correction: That should read: “without* any fear of the consequences”
This blog post and the one before it were very powerful stuff.
I can understand why a popular song on the radio these days has the lyrics, “I don’t care!”
At the same time, I’m no longer 22 and going to live forever.
I found this to be an equally powerful reply to this blog post:
Why Medicine Won’t Allow Cancer to Be Cured
“…the most powerful essential strategy I know of to treat cancer is to starve the cells by depriving them of their food source.”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/08/joseph-mercola/theres-no-cancer-cure/
That, of course, is easier said than done.
After reading that, I’m thinking my love of homemade biscuits, a Coke and grilled meats is going to be the death of me. Ha. Bread really is heroine!
“Eat at least one-third of your food raw. Avoid frying or charbroiling;”
[F! Where’s the Easy Button?]
I saw an article recently on a prepper website listing a number of .gov studies showing how Mary Jane prevented and cured cancer. (Sorry, I couldn’t find it again) It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to find that was true, or partially so. It certainly would explain the zeal our overlords have in persecuting so many people today. Maybe that’s part of the reason ‘The Culture of Death’ fits today?
Plug Nickel Outfit mentions, ‘table of life’. To me, for those who are older (much older) it makes a lot of sense. For those who are younger, it makes little sense. As if the gazelle should just give up when in the clutches of the lion?
Anyway, we should all be so lucky to find this end:
http://modernmarketingjapan.blogspot.com/2013/01/true-prosperity-grandfather-dies-father.html
I saw a photo of an old American quilt that expressed just such a cycle once.
It made sense and seemed cool.
However, like the gazelle above, for some, they don’t quite fit that laid out cycle.
Seems to me, for those, resistance is all there is, even in acceptance..
In the meantime, we’re all right on the heels of ‘Anonymous’.
We’re next. … Some of us might even beat him/her to the punchline?
Also, I like Justanotherguy’s outlook, however; I’m reminded of a line from the film, ‘Conan, The Barbarian’ about how gold looses it’s luster and all that’s left is a father’s love for his child… so those things might not have the appeal they once did. … Which bites.
… Pardon me, just thinking out loud, here.
@Justanotherguy:
Just my luck…
To Justanotherguy: There are always consequences. What happens to his value system? What makes you think Anonymous WANTS to do those things which compromise his own or others’ lives?
Are we so imtimidated, by God or society, that we “behave” for fear of consequences rather than living our lives for the satisfaction of our own integrity?
I hope you were being facetious when you suggested those (some dangerous, some illegal, all unethical) acts to finish out his life.
For what it’s worth, I found the cannabis link I mentioned above:
http://buelahman.wordpress.com/2013/07/30/34-medical-studies-proving-cannabis-cures-cancer/
Gosh, Plug Nickel Outfit, there’s a whole bunch of similar ones like the one in your link:
“…They trusted this representative of Big Cancer who intentionally misdiagnosed patients as having cancer so that he could pass them off for high-profit cancer tests and invasive chemo treatments. Yes – he lied to people about having cancer […] Dr. Farid Fata is being charged, by the FBI, with the administration of unnecessary chemotherapy to patients.” …
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/another-criminal-of-the-medical-establishment/
“patients” – plural.
And those are just the ones we know of.
This reminded me a lot of “A Death in Hardyville” (http://www.backwoodshome.com/columns/wolfe060415.html). I only hope Mr. Anonymous can receive the same care and consideration that Mrs. Nat did.
Bon voyage, Mr. Anonymous. And if you do find anything on the other side, try and find some way to let us know what you find, will ya please?