Your Thoughts on Dying.

[LisaMarie]

I will have to agree with you both ..Jolanta you stated it better than I could....I tried in my post but I think you di better...Thanks

[jola57]

Thanks, I just came back from a blissful 2 weeks on Kaua'i. Disregarding my trips to Poland as half business with a bit of pleasure, this is by far the best 2 weeks I had since my wegs nightmare began. Sun, surf, warm water what more can I say. It brought a lot of thoughts of dying and leaving this beauty behind, of suffering and, again, looking at my big clumsy body. Comparing myself to the 20 somethings in their toned bods in bikinis. What more can I say. I came to a conclusion that this is my life sentence I have to get over it and enjoy the time I have left without regret.

[drz]

If you can survive the treatment, things will get better. This generally seems true for GPA and some types of cancer.

If survival is doubtful and treatment apt to be an arduous which may only increase pain and discomfort, would you choose to try treatment that may kill you or let the disease take its course.

[Al]

If survival is doubtful and treatment apt to be an arduous which may only increase pain and discomfort, would you choose to try treatment than may kill you or let the disease take its course.

This is a tough decision--even tougher than it looks, because once it becomes necessary to go there, you, the patient, are likely to be not in control of the situation, regardless of your wishes. And a distressed family is not often competent to be entirely rational or considerate of your desires. I think the best you can do is pre-state, firmly, how you feel. Yet your feelings can change, depending on the context. I thought about this a lot this summer when I was asked to speak at the vigil of my old orchestra director. He was 96, with bile duct cancer that was not worth treating, but his mental faculties were sharp to the end. (Oh, they were sharp; oh, I do have stories!) He made his own decisions, some of which his (10!) kids might have taken exception to; but they were his own. Not everyone has this luxury.

Al

[me2]

Ok Al,
Please share one story, one decision of exceptional resistance or interest that this man was able to make. I haven' thought ahead much admittadly so I'm looking to prime the pump.

Kirk

[Al]

Ok Al,
Please share one story, one decision of exceptional resistance or interest that this man was able to make. I haven' thought ahead much admittadly so I'm looking to prime the pump.

Let me dig through my files, Kirk. There are plenty of stories; I just have to decide which is or are appropriate....

Al

[delorisdoe]

Now why do you think you need to be appropriate?

[Al]

Now why do you think you need to be appropriate?

Sorry. Leigh--I hope never to stoop so low. Anyway, Here is something you and Kirk, at least, might enjoy about a guy that always led life by the nose instead of the other way around. By way of background, I had know Bill and most of his kids (You can do a search on Vilem Sokol, a rather remarkable guy) since high school, so...nearly 5 decades. Bill was a staunch Catholic, and I am sure he took the Prayer of St. Francis seriously, and maybe even literally. But his reward wasn't just in an afterlife; there was enough joy and love in the present one that, as he lay dying at age 96 (but I think he would have felt the same way 50 years earlier), he wasn't afraid of what was yet to come. Anyway, what follows is the conclusion of what I wrote out for his vigil. Of course, in the event I deviated from the script, but it s easier to post the original.

A few days before he died, Eileen and I went to see Bill at the Anderson House. Becky [one of the daughters] was there, but when I entered, he ordered his daughter out. “Okay, Dad,” she said. “I’m leaving, but I’ll be back.” “OUT!” he repeated. “We have big things to talk about!” Now, I had been prepared to stay a few minutes, then make my exit so Bill could get some rest….

…Three hours later, he told us, “you must be getting tired.”

Two days later, we visited again, for the last time. Words came slower, and with more frequent pauses. Sometimes his tongue wouldn’t keep up with his thoughts, and he would stop and spit out the e-n-un-ci-a-tion. And this way he regaled us with a long-form joke about a man on his deathbed. I don’t know how long he had been saving that one, but when he deliver the punchline his wicked grin was a mile wide.

And then, after a few more stories, we said our goodbyes. He then gave us a wondrous blessing. Thus, my life with Bill Sokol was fully recapitulated, first meeting to last. But then he added a remarkable and perfect coda. Needless to say, I was pretty misty-eyed at this point. Bill caught this. He once more looked me straight in the eye and shook his fist. “Now, Al, if you cry on the way out, and people see you, just say, [he grabbed his face], ‘ooh, my beard!’”

Ooh, my beard.

Al

[mishb]

Al, that is a wonderful story.
He sounds like the character in a book I read called "Tuesdays with Morrie" by Mitch Albom.
Actually most of the books by Mitch Albom make the "thoughts of Dying" just that little bit easier.

[delorisdoe]

I LOVE tuesdays with morrie