Shiva wrote:

Don't know how
old or
strong your friend is. Sorry for the aside.

I spent an hour with my old pal today, and he seemed pretty beat.
He isn't in pain until he moves around, so he don't move much.
He's lost his appertite, and radiation therapy affected his whole
digestive
tract
from mouth to to his rear.
He was looking very poorly, and I think he won't last long,
but he's stoic, and I guess depressed, but all he whinged about today
was the amateur magazine was late arriving in the mail.
I found it difficult to cheer him up. But he had 3 visitors today,
and if you have friends, your life wasn't all in vain.
I hope he recovers, who knows....


Hi Patrick -
Once again, I'm goin' to throw in my 2cent's wortheven though it may be a
bit too forward. It's amazing what some doctors choose not to discuss with
their paitients, so, even though your friend has probably knows about this,
I'll blurt it out anyhow:
if he feels better (just symptomatic stuff like treating nausea / appetite
/ pain / mood), his body will be in much better shape to fight this thing,
maybe just giving him more time, but hey - it would be *good* time, not time
spent depressed & in pain. Ther are meds availabe to deal with each one of
his *symptoms*, and docs who're willin' to write the scripts. Being Stoic
makes little sence at times like this. 'Luck.
-dim

He's got a lot of friends and relatives calling.
His wife is at a home with alziemers and she can't help him.
He had an open heart bypass operation 6 years ago, at only 68, and he recovered
OK
but survivors of that often then live to face the worst a little later.
Later has arrived, and now he's got cancer. First he had chemo therapy,
which hasn't worked, and he knows, and he was weakened by the therapy,
and now he's weakened by radiation illness, and his old tired body
has to get rid of the dead tumour cells, and the fight doesn't look like being
won.
The healthy tissues are affected, or burned, by radiation, like the tumours.
He doesn't know if he'll recover or not, and the doctors are
not going to spend enormous sums of expertise if they think he will die soon.
If he eats too much, he gets appalling digestive tract troubles and pain.
He has a bag strapped to his leg for his pee, and tube stuck up his old fella,
to get past the tumour, and the pain is horrid.
He has a table full of medications for pain and gut treatments.
The doctors like to cure or heal ppl, and often are pretty useless
when someone is being called by Our Maker.
He's on an oxygen machine, ever since the bushfire smoke in january
triggered emphasema.
If I offered him a joint, I think it might kill him.
Then he'd come down form the high of the joint, and
be extra depressed.
I just want to be there for the guy, its not much for me to achieve,
and I'd feel bad if I didn't follow it through.
Life is about seeing life come into our presence,
and going from it, its natural.
We look at the fresh young faces around us, and we should be mindful
to teach them love, which is a terribly difficult thing to do,
and perhaps they'll preside over our passing with grace and perhaps some care.

Perhaps he'll get well, but perhaps he will realise its time to go.
The uncertainty facing him must be a pressing weight,
and he has so many health problems, maybe he just wonders when it'll
be over.

If I were him I'd give away everything I didn't need, and stop
clinging on, and try to make peace with any adversaries, and prepare for
death, but I don't think this guy has a clue that he must do any of that,
his energy is gutted, and it really doesn't matter, I am sure he'll depart
with a few loved ones nearby, I know his daughter and her husband.

Patrick Turner.