more health news
May. 23rd, 2006 03:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelidonA couple of weeks ago, we found out that my father-in-law, one of the men I admire most, has prostate cancer. Yesterday we heard back with the lab results, and they seem to have caught it early, it hasn't spread, but it is one of the highly aggressive forms. Apparently they don't do surgery for this type with men in their mid to late 70s, so it'll be hormones and radiation. It's good they caught it when they did, the prognosis is pretty good, and the timing of it is such that my in-laws will be able to come as planned and stay with us to help out in a few weeks when my son has his surgery, and my partner has her radio-iodine treatment. Besides being very grateful for their help, I'll be especially glad to spend a few weeks with them while they're here.
Yesterday, when we were still waiting on the lab results, my partner got a new patient, a man about her dad's age, who had advanced prostate cancer that had metastasized and who was now terminal. Something similar happened when she got diagnosed with thyroid cancer -- she almost immediately got a patient about her age who'd had thyroid cancer metastasize to her brain and now had about six weeks to live.
Coincidence, right. There are times when I wonder whether choosing a path that forces you to look at everything with brutal honesty head-on and won't let you maintain even little bits of illusion was such a good idea. But illusions, whether about oneself, about others, or about situations or circumstances, are weak places, places where even if you have the right intent, you're likely to make the wrong choices, because what you think or believe is the truth, isn't. It's like building a house out of rotten wood or stone -- somewhere along the line, it will fall into pieces under its own weight, no matter how carefully and skillfully you laid the stone or planned and raised the walls and roof. In the end, illusions, however comfortable or pretty-seeming, however firmly you believe in them, fatally subvert and sabotage the work, and, at best, make you start over from scratch with some new-found and hard-won wisdom, and at the worst, first make you spend a good dollop of time healing from having had a big ol' house fall on top of you in a shower of clue-bricks and clue-by-fours.
So, no, those sweetly seductive illusions aren't for me. But I sure do miss them sometimes.
Yesterday, when we were still waiting on the lab results, my partner got a new patient, a man about her dad's age, who had advanced prostate cancer that had metastasized and who was now terminal. Something similar happened when she got diagnosed with thyroid cancer -- she almost immediately got a patient about her age who'd had thyroid cancer metastasize to her brain and now had about six weeks to live.
Coincidence, right. There are times when I wonder whether choosing a path that forces you to look at everything with brutal honesty head-on and won't let you maintain even little bits of illusion was such a good idea. But illusions, whether about oneself, about others, or about situations or circumstances, are weak places, places where even if you have the right intent, you're likely to make the wrong choices, because what you think or believe is the truth, isn't. It's like building a house out of rotten wood or stone -- somewhere along the line, it will fall into pieces under its own weight, no matter how carefully and skillfully you laid the stone or planned and raised the walls and roof. In the end, illusions, however comfortable or pretty-seeming, however firmly you believe in them, fatally subvert and sabotage the work, and, at best, make you start over from scratch with some new-found and hard-won wisdom, and at the worst, first make you spend a good dollop of time healing from having had a big ol' house fall on top of you in a shower of clue-bricks and clue-by-fours.
So, no, those sweetly seductive illusions aren't for me. But I sure do miss them sometimes.
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-23 08:07 pm (UTC)*HUGS* and much mojo to you all.
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Date: 2006-05-24 12:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-23 08:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-23 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-24 01:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-23 08:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-24 01:50 pm (UTC)Sometimes it seems like your year in the barrel...
Date: 2006-05-24 12:19 am (UTC)Illusions can lead to delusions, you can never really know how you stand unless you are dealing with reality, no matter how much it blows. Likwise, plotting a course of action based on faulty data is bound to lead to otherwise-avoidable problems sooner or later - garbage in, garbage out.
The salve for an inundation of clue bricks and clue x 4's is (of course) Cluebricant!
Marc
Re: Sometimes it seems like your year in the barrel...
Date: 2006-05-24 01:17 pm (UTC)Sometimes the path of honesty is ghastly. Simply GHASTLY.
It is good to hear that your FIL's cancer was caught soon enough.
I must admit that I have been avoiding my uncle since his diagnosis. Most interaction has been by telephone. I must stop that....
Swan
Re: Sometimes it seems like your year in the barrel...
Date: 2006-05-24 03:01 pm (UTC)Re: Sometimes it seems like your year in the barrel...
Date: 2006-05-24 03:03 pm (UTC)Re: Sometimes it seems like your year in the barrel...
Date: 2006-05-26 01:17 am (UTC)"Ain't no finer grease - fit fer man or beast!"
Marc
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Date: 2006-05-25 12:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-30 11:05 pm (UTC)Coincidence? or a view of the other fork?
Date: 2006-05-30 02:44 am (UTC)About the coincidences ... in my experience, especially lately, I keep tripping over opportunities to look along the road not taken.
A few years ago I found myself visiting a longtime friend at her on-campus office in the Math department ... and realized abruptly that she had the office, the schedule, the student relationships I would likely have enjoyed if I'd taken the Math degree I thought I wanted in 1964.
Just now another dear friend is having the 'herniated disc at L4-5' that I narrowly avoided by seeking help when mine was 'only bulging' ... so now I get to watch the 'physical-therapy-and-maybe-surgery' sequence while I'm doing the 'six-visits-to-my-favorite-chiropractor' sequence instead.
The folks who stayed in Chicago when we left ... the folks who moved to Wisconsin when we got 'golden handcuffed' to New Jersey instead ... all these chances to watch the progress of the alternate fork without having to actually live through it.
Just as, in a similar way, my experience nowadays as a Hospice volunteer gives me a chance to walk the same path from a different viewpoint from mine a few years ago when it was my Mom dying ... and from a different viewpoint than the one I'll eventually have when it's me in the bed ...
And in a wonderfully similar way, to watch my 8-year-old grand-daughter having interactions with her mom that I remember from both the mom and the daughter perspective ... and seeing how much different they look from here.
Many blessings of love and light and LOTS of healing laughter to you dear folks.
Re: Coincidence? or a view of the other fork?
Date: 2006-05-31 02:04 pm (UTC)Thanks again for your note, your thoughts, the good wishes, the laughter, and your delightful company -- I appreciate them all very much.