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This page is about dealing with Cancer, about motivation, humor, perspective,
courage and anything else I can find that interests me...
www.choosehope.com
www.cancersucks.com.
From Leroy Seiver's Blog:
Learning to Laugh About Cancer
I heard my first cancer joke the other day. I
assumed that cancer jokes must exist, but I had just never heard
one. It's not the easiest subject to joke about, of course. I know
that when I joke about it, it can make people uncomfortable. But I
do think it's important to be able to laugh about it all. I mean,
funny things do happen. And of course there's the old cliché, I
laugh so I don't cry.
So here it is:
When a cancer patient dies, why do they nail the coffin shut?
So the doctors can't do just one more round of chemo.
OK, so it's not really all that funny, although there's certainly
a ring of truth to it. But I am still encouraged that someone even
tried to come up with a cancer joke. I wouldn't recommend telling it
at a party, for instance. But who knows, it might get big laughs in
the chemo room.
Cancer takes so much from our lives. I think it's important to
keep it from stealing our laughter. And for all the people who don't
have cancer, and who get uncomfortable if we joke about it, it's OK.
It's just a disease. We need to be able to laugh about it, and we
need you to laugh with us. Not the uncomfortable nervous laugh, but
real laughter, the kind that makes you feel better. We'll all be
better off.
So have you heard this one? Two tumors walk into a bar... OK,
that may be in questionable taste, but I've just always wanted to
say that.
Leroy Sievers
7:23 AM ET | 08-28-2007 |
permalink
From The Onion...
Loved Ones Recall Local Man's Cowardly Battle
With Cancer
February 24, 1999 |
Sponsored by Profiles In Fear
On Jan. 26, just four days after visiting the doctor for what
he thought was severe indigestion or maybe an ulcer, Russ Kunkel got the dreaded
news: A malignant, fist-sized tumor had metastasized between his stomach and
liver. It was cancer.
Right then and there, faced with the prospect of a life-threatening disease, the
34-year-old Florissant, MO, husband and father of three drew a deep breath and
made a firm resolution to himself: I am not going to fight this. I am a dead
man.
On Feb. 20, less than a month after he was first diagnosed, Kunkel died
following a brief, cowardly battle with stomach cancer.
"Most people, when they find out they've got something terrible like this, dig
deep down inside and tap into some tremendous well of courage and strength they
never knew they had," said Judith Kunkel, Russ' wife of 11 years. "Not Russ. The
moment he found out he had cancer, he curled up into a fetal ball and sobbed
uncontrollably for three straight weeks."
Said Judith: "I can still remember Russ' last words: 'Oh, God—I'm going to die!
Why, God, why? Why me? Why not someone else?'"
According to Russ' personal physician, Dr. James Wohlpert, the type of cancer
Russ had generally takes at least four months to advance to the terminal stage.
But because of what he described as a "remarkable lack of fighting spirit," the
disease consumed him in less than one.
"It's rare that you see someone give up that quickly and completely," Wohlpert
said. "Cancer is a powerful disease, but most people can at the very least delay
the spread of it by maintaining a positive outlook and mental attitude. This,
however, was not the case with Russ."
Russ' friends and acquaintances saw that same lack of fighting spirit.
"Russ did not go quietly, that's for sure," said longtime friend Bobby Dwyer.
"He did a tremendous amount of screaming."
"During the three days he spent at work before the pain got too bad, I saw a
very different Russ," said Arnold Tolliver, a co-worker at the Florissant
electronics store where Russ had been employed for the past six years. "He was
always telling the customers how tragic it was that he wouldn't outlive his
kids, reminding me that every day is a gift cruelly torn from his fingers, and
grabbing somebody, anybody, by the shirt and screaming into their face that he
didn't want to die."
In those final days, like so many who realize their day of reckoning is near,
Russ Kunkel turned to a higher power. "Russ came to me in his time of need,"
said Pastor Charles Bourne of Holy Christ Almighty Lutheran Church. "But when I
tried to comfort him by saying he would be with God soon, he only stopped
bawling long enough to say, 'Fuck God. There is no God.' I had to get a couple
acolytes to help me pry him out from underneath the pews."
When the end finally came, Russ Kunkel died red-eyed, trembling and hysterical
in the attic of his home, where, in the depths of his fear, he was convinced the
Reaper would look last. On that day, his 5-year-old daughter Bailey awoke to an
unnerving quiet, the usual terror-choked sobs and shrieks of her father
strangely absent from the morning air. Alarmed, she ran to her mother's side.
"Bailey was yelling, 'Daddy stopped crying! Daddy stopped crying!'" Judith said.
"Somehow, though she's still very young, she understood."
On Monday, Russ Kunkel was laid to rest at Shady Grove Cemetery in Florissant.
More than 200 people gathered to bid farewell. And just as Russ had requested
shortly before his death, the funeralgoers wailed loudly and gnashed their
teeth, cursing the heavens for the unfair hand dealt their loved one.
"The day before Russ died," Judith recalled, "he took my hand and said to me,
'At my funeral, I don't want people to wear bright colors and smile and laugh
fondly at the wonderful memories of the precious time we spent together on
Earth. Tell them to wear black and cover their faces with ash. Tell them to weep
bitter tears and rail angrily against the cruel God who took me at so young an
age. Do this for me, my beloved.'"
Added Judith: "He also told me not to move on from this tragedy by one day
finding love in the arms of another. He said he couldn't bear the thought of me
with someone else, and that the best way I could honor his memory was by never
building a new life for myself."
"They say it is in times of great trial that a man's true colors show," said
Russ' best friend, Larry Ahrens, summing up the feelings of those who knew the
man. "And in Russ' case, he had a yellow streak a mile wide."
This is pretty moving and very powerful, when you consider the
age of the author you can only marvel at his clarity and focus. Below are
excerpts from his website here is the whole thinghttp://www.carepages.com/UpdateListing?pagenumber=3&seed=433640&ClusterNodeID=jb06&tlcx1=beaumont&tlcx2=2527032
'Dying is not what scares me'
A teen fighting a deadly cancer creates a blog that is rich in lessons in living
August 29, 2007 He was an 18-year-old boy made wise beyond his years by a deadly
cancer.
When Miles Alpern Levin of suburban Detroit was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma
in June 2005, he vowed to make the rest of his life — however brief or long —
count. He started a blog at carepages.com to recount his daily lessons in living
and dying.
“Dying is not what scares me,” he wrote. “It’s dying and having no impact.”
FINDING MILES' BLOG ON THE WEBTo sign on to Miles' blog, go to
www.carepages.com, then to LEVIN STORY. New visitors must register with a unique
user name and password, but there is no charge. Miles and his blog became
front-page news in Detroit. He was featured on CNN. Thousands of readers around
the world read his words, were profoundly moved and wished him well. Over the
course of two years, his writing grew in depth and eloquence.
“He tried to think of cancer as a gift,” wrote Laura Berman of the Detroit News.
“He wanted to live as well as he possibly could. He strived, consciously, for
saintliness — an uncommon aspiration for an affluent 21st century American
teen.” Last Sunday, Miles died at home. His mother, father and little sister
were with him.
“Miles’ funeral was yesterday,” his mother, Nancy, wrote on the blog Tuesday.
“So unusual for Michigan in August, but it was cool, damp, and frequently
raining heavily. The sky, like many, was crying.” Here is an excerpt from Miles’
blog:
July 7, 2005 I went to the driving range the other day and I
was thinking . . .
I was thinking how you start out with a big bucket full of golf balls, and you
just start hitting away carelessly. You have dozens of them, each individual
ball means nothing so you just hit, hit, hit. One ball gone is practically
inconsequential when subtracted from your bottomless bucket. There are no
practice swings or technique re-evaluations after a bad shot, because so many
more tries remain. Yet eventually you start to have to reach down towards the
bottom of the bucket to scavenge for another shot and you realize that tries are
running out. Now with just a handful left, each swing becomes more meaningful.
The right technique becomes more crucial, so between each shot you take a couple
practice swings and a few deep breaths. There is a very strong need to end on a
good note, even if every preceding shot was horrible, getting it right at the
end means a lot. You know as you tee up your last ball, “This is my final shot,
I want to crush this with perfection; I must make this count.” Limited
quantities or limited time brings a new, precious value and significance to
anything you do. Live every day shooting as if it’s your last shot, I know I
have to.
I found out today 5 year survival rates are just 20 percent.
August 2, 2005 We’re about to head out for the hospital to
start another chemo round. I’m dreading these next few days because I’ve just
started feeling really strong in the last couple days and now the disintegration
process starts all over again.
Now I’m starting to complain. I often think about how much worse off I would be
if I lived in Africa or any other 3rd world country and got a rare cancer. It
wouldn’t be identified, and even if it could, the treatment would be
unaffordable. Not an easy death either.
It could always be worse.
August 15, 2005 I find the idea of having another person’s
blood inside of me quite weird. Blood is something that is supposed to be
internally contained and unseen, and this is the reason we find it disconcerting
to see someone bleeding. I am not complaining, I look forward to a transfusion
because the red blood cells will give me a little more energy and pep; however,
I have realized with interest how personal we consider a gross, red body fluid
to be. This makes even less sense when you consider the intense screening
process used to ensure that the blood I receive is the exact type that I have
already. Yet it is comparable to drinking a Coke, and having some stranger came
up and pour their glass of Coke in to yours. Coca-cola + Coca-cola = Coca-cola,
yet you would be bewildered and unsure or unwanting to finish your newly
combined glasses.
July 4, 2006 Your biological vitality means very little —
having a beating heart and operational lungs does not define you. Your effect on
the world around you does. Once you fulfill that service, your shift is done.
You’re off work and it’s time to go home.
October 17, 2006 Dying is not what scares me, it’s dying having had no
impact. I know a lot of eyes are watching me suffer; and — win or lose — this is
my time for impact. If all is naught but random atoms in the void, then that
would explain a lot, like Darfur and why I wound up with alveolar
rhabdomyosarcoma. But if there be a purpose, then this is my hour. I have tried
my best to show what it is to persevere, and what it means to be strong.
February 24, 2007 I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared.
March 16, 2007 Frankly, I’m not convinced beyond unconvincing
that there is a God. It would make a lot of sense that there wouldn’t be, that
what has happened to me is no more than a random DNA transcription error, a
rearrangement of genes KHR-PAX3 and PAX3-FKHR, which has caused my cells to
multiply wildly. Yet even if this is the case, we do not live in a hopeless
world; we live in a humanist world. The Dali Lama may awake to find himself
choking on noxious fumes as his house burns down for no Higher reason than a
worn out extension cord, something that kills 50 Americans a year. However, even
if his electrical fire is no more than a fluke calamity, a lone G Major chord
not as part of any orchestrated symphony but mere frequency in the collective
garble, there are still firefighters who will burst through the flames to rescue
him (not just because he is the Dali Lama, they’d do the same for you) — total
strangers — or go down trying. That counts for something.
April 4, 2007 For my only actual class of the day, Existential
Hero, my teacher gave me the whole hour to speak to the class. . . . At one
point, when I’d asked if there were any questions, someone wanted to know if
there was anything I really wanted to do before I die. There are a million
things I’d like to do before I die. I’d like to jump from a diving board into a
pool of jell and flobble around in the blobbly gelatin. It is just not possible
to finish an all-you-can-eat appetizer platter, and house policy prohibits to-go
bags on such selections, but to answer the question: While there are plenty of
things I’d enjoy doing, there is nothing I feel I need to do before I can die
peacefully. I’ve already checked those things off.
April 17, 2007 The Disappointment Essay I’m only going to say
this once.
Part of the power of Carepages, I’ve been told, is that it resonates a certain
authenticity, free from pretense. But I’m sure many of you must wonder
sometimes, “Wait, how could he not be upset about what’s happening to him?” So
free from pretense and sugar coating, I will say, no, this is not what I had
planned.
First I should address the anger issue. That’s the easy one because, as I’ve
said, I really don’t have much anger. I don’t. I have moments, but for the most
part I accept this. I have done everything I can to try and survive. If it is to
be, it is to be. As for “Why me?”. . . I don’t know, and I’ve given up
wondering. If I have a divine purpose, it is to show the world how to deal with
adversity head on, with courage and grace. If I am here by science and chance, I
still showed the world how to deal with adversity head on, with courage and
grace.
I come back to the analogy of the baby drowning in the river and getting angry
at the H20 molecules. I’m not angry because there’s nothing to be angry at.
Anger requires a target. You have to be angry AT something. There is no target,
there are only abnormal cellular processes.
So I’m not angry. This is how it is. But I am so terribly sorry that this is how
it has to be. I so badly want to live. I have great enthusiasm for life; that
probably shows. This is the first carepage update I’ve ever written through
tears. I just want to live. NPR Columnist and cancer patient Leroy Sievers says
it for me best: “I’m not scared to die, I’m just not ready.” It was hard for me
at school when all my friends got worked up about the colleges they had not yet
heard back from. So much talk about college. It was hard to hear. . . .
I try to hold in mind that all you can do is work with what you’re given, and I
pretty much made the most of it. I’m proud of that. Whether you live to be 18 or
81, your tenure on this earth is still fleeting. For the happy and healthy, it
will always be too short. Given this, all you can do is do some good, I suppose,
and find a couple things to laugh at in between. I’ve done that.
Most of the time I’m not sad. When I feel well, I’m happy. But when I’m feeling
happy and well is when I realize how much I enjoy this whole thing, how much
I’ll miss it (although I don’t think I will be capable of missing it once I’m
gone) — and that’s when I have the hardest time letting go.
I’ve always appreciated a quote on the way things are by Hunter S. Thompson.
“It’s a strange world,” he wrote, “Some people get rich, others eat s - - - and
die. Who knows?” That seems about it. And who knows?
Who knows. I believe through cancer I was able to rise, coming respectably close
to self-actualization. Maybe I never would have gotten my act together
otherwise. Into adulthood, I might have been scattered, eternally five minutes
late to life. Maybe this has put my good where it will do the most. I can only
hope so.
April 22, 2007 Someone is really testing my resolve now.
Last evening I started having pain in both my shoulders, known bone tumor sites.
We started giving me morphine, but the pain continued to worsen anyway. Within
an hour, it had spiraled out of control. My chest hurt so much that I didn’t
feel I could take in a breath. More and more morphine only succeeded in making
me sick and throwing up.
By 11 o’clock we were in the emergency room and I was screaming like a pregnant
lady.
April 23, 2007 I’m not pushing Life Lesson #38 — Live Every Day
As If It Were Your Last. I’m not even convinced that is a good idea. You’d give
away a lot of valuables that you’d probably want back if you lived to the end of
the day — and it’s very unlikely that you wouldn’t. And you’d certainly skip
work, which you can’t do every day. So maybe scratch #38 and find what you find.
I realize that everybody is going to come away with something different. . . .
Who knows? One girl told me that I’ve helped her see, for the first time, life
as something precious. Another person has told me my way of being amidst this
ordeal has helped her come to peace with the death of her own father. So often
we use lazy words which fall to the ground and never get up, but those can
change the world, or at least a person.
I’ve been at my computer too long now. It’s a beautiful day outside and I don’t
have time to miss it.
May 19, 2007 Chemotherapy life falls into three-week cycles,
each with its own season. The first is chemo week, which I generally consider to
be compelling refutation of the notion that every day is a gift.
Many have espoused this on the message boards, and good for you if you can think
like that. But those days have, in my opinion, only enough redemptive value to
justify sticking them out for the better times to come. In and of itself, I
don’t consider it a day worth living. Life is worth living; Chemo week is not.
The nausea fades in week two but the other side-effects start catching up. Of
the multitude of discomforts, the most important is the near cessation of blood
production. Diminished red blood cells cause less oxygen absorption, resulting
in shortness of breath and fatigue. Low platelets create an inability for the
blood to clot. Most dangerously, the shortage of white blood cells (immune
system) compromise the body’s ability to fight infection. With only about half
the blood one should have, I spent a good portion of last weekend in the
hospital getting blood transfusions.
If all goes well, week three is almost normal. My third week started Monday.
It’s what I live for.
May 30, 2007 I look at my body and I don’t see anything
concerning. There isn’t the faintest sign of abnormality. Those shadowed cells
are like submarines. I know that when I look at my chest, lurking below the
surface is a lymph node overrun by errant cells. I know this, but only
intellectually. All I can see or feel is my skin. For a time when things got
really bad, I could feel lumps like frozen peas in my neck; but now, except for
a bald head, the cellular divisions taking place are an entirely covert
operation.
June 5, 2007 For one blissful split second when I first wake
up, I don’t know who or where or what I am. The only thing I’m aware of is the
tail end of my dreams. The other systems haven’t turned on yet.
Soon the dreams will fragment and vanish, but for a fleeting moment, all I am is
the perfect echo.
It all dawns on me very quickly. Oh yeah, I’m Miles. Oh right, this is not my
bed — this is the Ronald McDonald House. I’m here because I’ve relapsed with my
cancer and I’m nearly out of treatment options. Every morning, I learn anew that
I have cancer. Fortunately, the pang of this discovery is over faster than it
starts. I regain my bearings. It’s like when a dog on a leash sees a squirrel
and takes off after it: the dog bounds forward uninhibitedly for a stride before
the slack of the leash becomes taught. For a brief instant, there is no leash.
June 10, 2007 There’s silence now. We watched the train in the
distance, chugging steadily closer and closer, until finally it was passing us
by — first prom, then graduation earlier today. I’ve just come home and I’m at
my computer now. I still have my tie on. My room is a travesty of quietude:
there is stillness now, but the calm formed so abruptly that it feels
paradoxically alarming. The last of the compartments have just gone whooshing
past and the clanging has suddenly ceased. This weekend holds a slew of
graduation parties where we will be able to strain our ears and hear the sounds
growing fainter in the distance.
June 26, 2007 I have some unfortunate news. It appears that my
chemotherapy is no longer effective in containing the growth of my cancer. . . .
My mom told me today that I don’t need to go ahead with any more treatment if I
don’t want to. I want to. Mainly because life is the most breathtakingly amazing
thing I could ever imagine. If I can get more of it, even just a couple more
days or weeks or months, I’ll fight pretty hard for that. It’s not that I have a
particularly high opinion of human or universal nature. While there is much good
in the world, I see plenty of cruelty and abhorrence, but the stunning beauty
and mystery of the experience in all its breadth and glory so profoundly
surpasses words that I’m just going to shut up and move on to the next
paragraph.
July 11, 2007 I was in the Ronald McDonald elevator yesterday
with a cancer girl and I noticed she had been sent home from Sloan Kettering
with a chemotherapy backpack set to continue pumping that poison into her well
into the night. I could empathize with that horrible six-block hike from the
hospital, so I asked her how she was feeling. She said tired. When pressed for
greater symptoms of physical agony, she told me she had a 103-degree fever
yesterday. I laughed and told her I had her beat: I hit 104 last night.
Sometimes, during the good times, fun and laughter create themselves. But when
things aren’t so easy, you have to be the one to make it happen. It’s quite
possible, I assure you, but it takes work.
July 19, 2007 I realize I’m looking for solace in altruism, but
I don’t know of anywhere else right now.
July 26, 2007 Time is doing funny things to me now. Without a
working treatment, my time left on this Earth is probably around 2-5 weeks.
Still, I can’t get my mind around the possible brevity of my remaining life. It
often doesn’t seem possible. It’s just too huge and strange and unbelievable.
There’s pressure on every moment, even though I can’t get off my couch for most
of them.
If I am nearing the end, I am trying to relax into it, to accept what is to be.
I know that things are happening as they are supposed to happen, if not by
divine destiny then by the overpowering forces of nature. I know this because I
know that we have given this fight our all. We have left no stone unturned. I
have fought my very hardest.
Now it’s up to the greater powers, whatever they may be. It seems a certainty
that my path was not meant to be ordinary, but while everyone wants to feel
special, I find myself alternating between feelings of gratitude for all that my
life has been, with the feeling that it’s not asking too much to wish for more —
to trade it all for a normal, obscure teenage existence in which I craved
greater impact.
I’m getting quite a lesson in not getting what I want. Turns out it is one of
the hardest we’ll ever have to learn. I’m not a child anymore; I can’t get away
with throwing a tantrum.
August 7, 2007 I’m not resuming the [treatment]. It is pretty
certain that all continuing treatment would accomplish at this point is
compromising the quality of my remaining time. We’ve set up hospice care to
manage my decline from home in Detroit, which is where I am now and where I want
to be. I’m not really having any visitors; this is a time for family. I’ll try
to update as I can, but I am getting worse pretty quickly.
I wish I could offer better news. I really do. All I can think to say is thank
you. Thank you for your ongoing support of me and my family through this most
difficult time.
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