I have a couple of articles ready for DK, which I am probably publishing in the wrong order. Oh well, cancer has been in the news recently, so I guess I'll start there. Diarist Witgren has recently posted his own report, which I highly recommend you read. We had the same response to the situation, using the same words to ourselves. Plagiarism police stand back!!
I have had cancer at least since around 2019, probably 2018. Prostate cancer, which is the slowest moving, the easiest to treat. There's even a catchphrase,"You may die with prostate cancer, but you rarely die of it." But that, I am sure, applies only to people who catch it early. I did not. By the time I got even a provisional diagnosis, it had already metastasized. It was, in short, already in stage 4. Two things happened, almost simultaneously: "How am I going to pay for this?" And "Well, I've had a good run." And, since I had had a good run, that part was OK.
The idea of imminent death is a wonderfully sharpening thing. You start to focus on what is truly important to you. I wanted to live, and I noticed a sharp difference between "living" and "being alive." Of course, you have to have the "being alive" thing to do the"living part," but OK. In the meantime, you are "being alive," so get crackin' on the living part, and then it really won't matter when the "not alive" part happens. And, since that happens to everyone, eventually, perhaps not fearing it would be prudent. So I did. Stop fearing it.
Anyway, some very dear friends took me in, roomed me, fed me, loved me. Eternally grateful. Indeed, I very much doubt that I would be alive today without them. Alive to do the living thing. To write this DK article.
I started treatment, which got me from a PSA of 473, high being 4, down to 27. Then my oncologist said that the cancer was ignoring the drug--and a ferocious drug it was, to be sure. If you touched a pill with your bare fingers, you had to instantly wash them and not be so careless ever again.
Next step could have been chemotherapy. About a five-month regimen. Pretty miserable I hear. So I asked "how much time does that buy me?" His answer, "two months." Hahahaha!!! I can do simple math. If I did chemo, I would lose three months. So we didn't do that. I went off the curative drugs in September of 2022. In September of 2023, I moved in with another dear friend, being no longer able to live by myself and all. (I had moved back to Europe, where I had been living until 2019.) And went on palliative drugs only. Pain meds. Better living through chemistry kind of thing, you know? That's been pretty great, ranging from manageable pain (bearable pain) to no pain at all.
But what about the battle, Michael? Where's your battle against cancer in all of this? Well, I dunno. I had already won that one. Probably at about the same point in the process as Witgren, when I thought that I had had a good run. When I realized that all the medicos were focused on prolongation, while I had shifted to quality. I did not particularly want to merely be alive; I wanted to live. And so I did. And I have been living ever since, working, playing, laughing, reading, listening to music, painting and getting those paintings framed almost immediately. (I can't tell you how addictive that is.)
This is all very much dependent upon drugs, you understand, pain meds of the highest order. No illusions about that side of it. No pain drugs, and I'm a hideous twisted mass of pain. And I recently took a bad fall which did have me ground into a hideous twisted mass of pain. The worst in my life. And a week of new, powerful drugs.
So palliation, not cure. And even more on the kindness of my friends who house and feed and love me. No question. In the meantime, I have to say that I have friends with cancer who are deep down the rabbit hole of alternative cures, of searching for alternative cures, of taking alternative cures, and other friends who pushed hard to get me to go down the same hole to find my own cure. But if I've already won, then really there's an end to it.
Of course, the cancer will kill me. And it will more than likely be sometime this year. The prognosis of my hospice nurse is this year. But you all must already know that death is inescapable. If you don't try to escape the inescapable, you have made a very wise choice, I think. And fear? Well, you go to bed every night, eh? You sleep. You are unconscious. You are aware of nothing. I don't know what else to say, y'all. That does not sound fearsome to me. It sounds fine. You've lived. I hope you've lived. You've done stuff. And when you die, you are totally unaware of anything. Unaware means no feelings of any kind, including fear. I simply cannot find anything of terror in any of that.
Well, so I've won. And I've told you about it. I certainly hope that this gives even the tiniest bit of comfort to even one person. Wow. If I could give even the tiniest bit of comfort, and to only one person, then what a fine thing this bit essay has been. Everyone around you will be focused on prolongation, I am sure. They do not want to lose their friend. Of course not! I had to choose quality for myself, though. I had the friends to be able to do that, as I've said. May you all be equally supplied with good friends if you ever get any form of this vicious disease. I have been very lucky. I know that. My hope is that you may be equally so.