The right to choose

"In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes." - Benjamin Franklin

“I’m planning to live forever. So far, so good.” - Unknown

No one gets out of this life alive… yet death is a topic that most of us shy away from discussing, especially with those people that we love the most.

Well, I have news for all of you healthy folks out there: people with cancer are thinking about it and sometimes even talking about it with one another.

No, I’m not being negative. No, I’m not dwelling on it. It is just a reality of life that I want to consider before I’m in a critical situation and can no longer speak for myself.

In this week’s Kingston Whig Standard column, Sue Hendler asks the question:

Should we have the right to choose death with dignity, peace and care?

My answer is a resounding YES.

You can read other columns written by Sue Hendler by clicking on her name after Labels below.

Right to die Society of Canada

Book club Part III: Adventures ... and Lessons Learned

In this week’s book club assignment on the Last Lecture by Randy Paush, Dennis Pyritz asks the following questions:

In the beginning of this section Randy has met his pancreatuc cancer head-on, asking for the most difficult treatments available. He seems to be in remission. But at a follow-up visit, he discovers not only has he relapsed but has extensive metastases. If you have dealt with relapse or metastasis, how did it feel? How did you deal with it?

I used to think that if the cancer came back that I wouldn’t be able to cope, that I would curl up in the fetal position and cease to function, that I would get stuck in what I call ‘the dark side’. And I did just that for awhile. But that gets boring and miserable after awhile, so eventually I just put one foot in front of another and continued to move forward.

In ‘The Man in the Convertible” he relates how difficult it is to judge just how well you are doing emotionally when you are in the midst of your struggle with cancer. How did you make that determination?

Sometimes I wonder why I haven’t become a basket case during this journey. (Well… I have had my days…). But for the most part I think I am dealing with it better than did some earlier non-life threatening crises in my life. Is age and maturity a factor? Am I in denial? I'm not sure why I am coping as well as I am and sometimes feel like I'm holding my breath, waiting for the crash.

In “Jai” Randy relates that his wife kept her own journal and that it helped her deal with all those “little” issues that can nag a relationship. Has your partner tried a journal? or something else that helped? She also found that having conversations with other caregivers helped. Does reading other blogs help your spouse or just make it more difficult?

I don’t think my family members write journals and I’m not sure how much they have talked to others about it. I did arrange for my mother to meet with a social worker that I know at the cancer clinic and I think that was very helpful. My son tells me he doesn’t read my blog often because he finds it better to deal with it in chunks, rather than on a daily basis. Living in Europe (I’m in Ottawa and he’s in the Netherlands) has made it especially difficult for him.

I know that my mom has a hard time reading my blog at times and I’m pretty certain that my family does not read other blogs. Being relatively private people, I suspect my family is a bit mystified at why I would choose to share my feelings in such a public forum, but they support me in dealing with things in a way that is most helpful to me.

Being Cancer book club
Previous book club questions

Read about how others have coped when cancer has returned

Dutch art

One of the many things that I love about Holland is the art. Not just in the museums, but on street corners and in the squares you will find random pieces of art for your amusement and appreciation. I took the picture below at the beach.

The next 2 pictures were taken in a square not far from Adam & Tara's house. From a distance it looks like a rough round of wood but the detail is amazing.

I spent some time a few days ago at the M.C. Escher museum in Den Haag. You can get a bit lost trying to figure out how he created some of the impossible structures and sketches, many of them morphing from one creature to another (i.e. fish to birds).

Escher's art is fascinating and at times a bit twisted. I was drawn to the eye below. If you look closely you can see a skull in the pupil.

I'm turning into my mother

After Adam left for work this morning I noticed that a garbage truck was in the street and he hadn't taken out the trash. So I ran out with a garbage bag to make sure it made it to the truck.

I've been cooking and running errands and tidying up during the day and it suddenly occurred to me that I've become my mother. That's what she does when she visits me - she 'takes care' of me. I think I'll just let her do it in the future, without protest, because I'm realizing that it feels good to do things for your children when you visit, even when they are grown.

I guess it's just a mother-thing.

Learning from Elton John about how to write a bucket list

Sue Hendler's latest Kingston Whig Standard column is called: Learning from Elton John about how to write a bucket list.

Although we both attended the concert, things were too chaotic for Sue & I to connect that night. However, it was good to know there was another kindred spirit in the crowd; both of us enjoying the concert from our separate seats; both checking off something from our bucket lists that we had wanted to do for years.

Learning from Elton John about how to write a bucket list

My bucket list

You can read other columns by Sue Hendler by clicking on her name below, after Labels.

The Healing Chemistry of Tears

I subscribe to a weekly affirmation from The Cancer Crusade. This week's offering is titled The Healing Chemestry of Tears.

"I desperately needed and wanted to cry, and yet everyone kept telling me not to, that that would be "giving in to it" and evidence of a "negative attitude." I began to believe that if I cried, it could actually cause me to die. I thought that I would not die of cancer, but of negative thinking."

Have you ever felt this way? If so, you might want to read the full story.

The Cancer Crusade

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Road trip

The surprise was... a flight to Prague and a road trip through the Czech Republic!! After a day spent visiting Prague castle and checking out the amazing architecture in the city, we headed south through Bohemia, to a fairytale-like town called Cesky Krumlov. We continued on through Morevia, with several stops in interesting little towns and villages, drinking beer and eating sausages with the locals, spending a night at a farm B&B in the country - complete with goats in the yard and a rooster outside our window to make sure we got up at a reasonable hour.
Most of the driving was along roads that zig-zaged through small towns and villages, or at other times, through dark forests with trees so tall the sun could barely peek through.

It was a special 4-days spent with Adam; an experience made even more precious because he arranged it as a surprise for me. I am one lucky mom!!