Two weeks after the my grandmother's funeral, I was stopping by on my way to work to drop off some food for him, to make sure that he was eating since his mobility was impacted due to the pain in his hip. As I was there, I noticed his speech was slurred very noticeably and his words werent making a lot of sense either. My mother was coming down later that day and was more then a bit concerned at his physical state. Instead of taking him for the prep work for the surgery needed to replace the pins in his hip, he was taken for a CT scan of his head and the rest of his body as well to see if the cause of his slurring and memory lapses could be explained.
When the scans were examined, masses were found in his liver, kidneys, lymph nodes and several across his brain. When I heard that news, his gaunt appearance immediately called to mind my other uncle, Jack, who died of cancer back in 1998. As the disease began to claim more and more of him, I could see so much of him being slowly drained away. I still can hear his last words to me as I stood in his kitchen after helping him cut his lawn.
"They're killing me......dont know how much more of this I can take..... its killing me..."
That was in July of 1998. He died shortly before New Years and when I went to see him, I was horrified at just how much the cancer had worn him away. He was only in his mid 50's when he died, but he looked at least 20 years older. So much of his hair was gone from the radiation and chemo treatments that he was almost unrecognizable to me. Jack was never a husky guy, but he was so emaciated at the end that vision of bodies from concentration camps came crashing into my mind as I looked at his form lying there.
That experience was all the closer that I wanted to ever have to come to cancer in my lifetime. To imagine a disease that is capable of not only attacking a person's body, but also their hope as it did my uncle Jack and render them in the end merely a shadow of their former self is a very sobering experience.
This morning I went with my mother and my uncle to the first appointment with the oncologist. I could see the stress already beginning to weigh on my mother as she had just gone through two years of this with my grandmother. As we got back home and were walking up to the house, she leaned into me and whispered quietly,
"Six months....if he's lucky"
Once again that disease is rearing its ugly head in my family. We're now going to be helping my mother convert one of the spare rooms into a bedroom for my uncle as she is going to take over his care now at her home, much as she did for her mother the last two years and as she did for her other brother back in 1998. My mother is a remarkably strong woman in many ways, but everyone has the point where their plate is too full. She is going to be taking on his power of attorney as well as she has done for other members of her family. I cant even imagine what it must feel like to care for two of your own siblings and your own mother as they slowly waste away before your eyes and you are helpless to do anything to bring them back to health. I hope that I never get to know what it feels like.
I guess if this entry drives any point home, its this... None of us know just how much time we are given here. Dont spend the precious time that we do have arguing or fighting with people that dont agree with you. Spend the time with those that you love and doing things that you enjoy most in life. Smile at others freely and often. And never....EVER pass up a chance to tell others exactly how you feel about them. Find those things in life that you enjoy most and do them often. Finally......take care of yourself. If you dont, no one will.