Cancer deals out the good, the bad and the ugly in generous portions. and it’s important to talk about all three. The good is easy. It’s spelled out in three little letters…N-E-D. There are no better letters in a cancer spelling bee.
We adjust our lives to deal with the trauma of the diagnosis, treatment follows, the outcome is a good one and eventually life returns to normal or close to it.
Many cancers can be treated like a chronic disease now, controlled by medicines that knock it out or knock it down. Cancer survivors, and that’s a term I don’t use very often, call themselves that because they have seen the beast, and lived to tell the tale.
Some of us have not been so lucky in cancer world. When it’s been bad, it’s been very, very bad.
So it comes down to facing the fact that cancer kills.
How do we handle that? More importantly, how do we talk about the ultimate outcome?
As a cancer patient cargiver, do we ask the right questions of our loved one suffering with this disease? I mean do we ask the tough questions, when the cancer has reached a place where death comes knocking? What are their final requests? Do they want us to carry out certain tasks? Who should be there to say good-bye? In those last days or hours, how do we make them feel at ease?
This is a life changer, I assure you. It will be one of the hardest things you’ll ever do, but it will also be one of the most important.
April 14, 2011 @ 1:06 am
This post is late, but once again I found others’ comments so helpful. I thought I was past needing to read Our Cancer, and then I got back on and found I still needed all of you. I have many regrets about the things I didn’t say but wished I had, as Betty and Kathie referred to, but I just hope I did my best. It helps to know that others have similar feelings, so thanks to all of you.
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April 12, 2011 @ 7:00 pm
[…] A Life Changer […]
April 8, 2011 @ 10:43 am
I’m coming up on two years out since my brother Patrick died, and I’m still feeling it as though it were yesterday, still working it out through poems. The closer May is, the more unsettled I feel.
What cancer takes is time. . . in every possible way that word “time” can be considered.
Hugs to Al, Betty, Kathie, Laurie, Ned, and all of my friends here.
April 8, 2011 @ 8:43 am
I find myself thinking, with regret, of things I wish I had said or conversations I wish we had had, before my daughter died. I think we were pretty honest with each other but, with the exception that my daughter always said she was going to “Beat This Thing”, we rarely alluded to what the final outcome was very likely to be. I take comfort that she did come to a place of peace in her mind as to her readiness, if and when she ever died, but she was so positive that she would come through this, I always hesitated about bringing the subject up. I wish we had the time to do more of this type of talking but the days were filled with appointments, treatments, researching, handling insurance details and later with hospitals, emergency rooms, nursing care and later, at home Hospice care. At the end, even when she decided to enter Hospice, 3 days before she passed, I still had hopes that this was only a temporary detour. I wish we had discussed how she felt about it at that time, and why she had made the decision to enter Hospice. I speculate that she did know and didn’t want to die at home because of the children, but I’ll never really know. She entered Hospice on a Wed. afternoon. I told her that since I knew she was being taken care of, I was going back home to be with my husband when he underwent an escoscopy the following morning. I’ve never regretted being there for him at that time, because that’s when his diagnosis of cancer was made, but I’ve always regretted that I couldn’t stay with my daughter too, during her final lucid day. When we returned on Friday morning, she was heavily sedated and not communicating. I worried that she was over-sedated but when they agreed to lower the dosage, she was in so much pain and distress, that I immediately allowed them to continue the heavier sedation. She passed during the early hours on Sunday morning. 16 and a half months we were together, during that fight, and I still came away with regrets of things unsaid, and wondering if I had done all I could.
April 7, 2011 @ 7:57 pm
In retrospect, I wish Jim and I could have had this conversation but we couldn’t. Many people asked if we had or if we were going to and I would turn the tables and ask them if they could have it under the same circumstances. I wasn’t trying to be cruel but I just wanted to somehow justify my difficulty in doing it. I think he would have willingly discussed since he had a black humor long before cancer so he would have made many jokes no doubt. I know his service would have been to his liking and the “reception” that followed but I never knew how he really felt about knowing the end was in sight. I will always regret not having those conversations but my denial lasted way longer that the stage it is alloted in the cancer rules book. The good times were wonderful…no new treatment necessary, numbers look good, you look great, no pain…almost normal sometimes.
April 7, 2011 @ 7:48 pm
As the cancer patient, I’ve thought about many of questions those left behind would ask. When I was diagnosed with lung cancer, this became a very important task for me to do…spell out in detail my wishes, who to contact, telephone numbers and as many specifics as I could think of. I didn’t want this left to my wife and kids to sort through. My “Upon My Death” document tries to do this. I’m sure I’ve forgotten something but the most important items are included in this document. I am at peace in speaking about this. I’ve already spoken with the minister..a family minister who is like a part of our large, extended family. He has stood in the pulpit and at the graveside for many of my family members services and burials. He knows how special he is to so many of us and that we want him to say the final farewell and ask for God’s blessings.
I guess in many ways cancer makes us reflect upon our mortality. It enables us to focus on our life ending and what is it that we want in our final days and at our funeral. As sad and hard as all of this is for those left behind, we have an opportunity to lift some of their burden by writing it all down. This is a gift done out of love.