Well, no news is good news although no news in my case is merely bad news delayed. The last visit to Mayo kind of deflated me a bit, but only for the moment. Reality set in and I am at peace with it. The enlarging spleen has changed the complexion of my disease from one of a benign, natural life span nature, to one which is more threatening and which will eventually limit my time on earth.
Unfortunately there is no cure for what ails me, and although there are known treatments, none of them really has been shown to deter the disease process from its course. So I am left with the possibility of being placed in a protocol drug study at Mayo Rochester, should I fit the parameters of same. If so, I might aid in the treatment and cure for future generations, but not myself. For a physician and surgeon, there could be no higher calling than to offer oneself to the future care and treatment of others.
Life takes on a whole new meaning when one is faced with the surety of death, earlier than one expected. Of course, I am not expecting the grim reaper to appear tomorrow, but he is certainly on his way to my door and does have the right address. And although I have no fear of death, I am concerned with the act of dying. My experience with others is that the dying do not suffer as much as their loved ones, and that is my major thought at this moment in time.
Dying with dignity, without burdening my family, is first and foremost my major concern, given the fact that I am faced with the certainty of death from this disease. And as is true of most individuals who are given a "death sentence" of this sort, I go through the same phases of dying that are described in the texts, although I seemed to have past through the early phases and am accepting the reality of it.
Perhaps I am more accepting because of my medical training and because I have been around death so often. As a medical intern and resident and an internist in the U.S. Navy, death of chronically ill patients was not an unfamiliar event.
Perhaps I am more accepting because I have lived such a wonderful life, with a wonderful wife children, family and friends. Therein lies the core of my inner strength.
Also, perhaps I understand the cycle of life, and that just as there is birth and new life, there must be the end of life. In the field of medicine, one must accept that death is merely part of the cycle of life, and that it makes no sense to fear either extreme of the cycle. To do so would make no sense of life and without making sense of life, what is the reason for existence?
In addition, the vastness of our universe, the millions of unanswered questions and the faith that all of this did not happen by chance, has shown me that I am merely a grain of sand on the beach of life, where, outside of perhaps taking care of my health by abstaining from certain activities and participating in others, I had little to do with my eventual fate. What is written in the book of life is written in indelible ink.
And so we trudge onward, doing the best we can, playing the hand we are dealt and hoping for a dignified and easy passing. This is not a "giving up," by any manner of speaking. Rather, it is an acknowledgment that life is what life is, and nothing more.
JLK
JLK
