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dansantat · 3 years

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NOW WE ARE TWO: A Eulogy for My Father

Adam U Santat (October 21,1943 - April 27, 2021)

Today is April 27, 2021.

When I was very young and we lived in New Jersey my father took us to the beach and he lifted my tiny frame over his neck and we walked out into the ocean together. My mother watched us from the coast as we wandered 50 yards into the shallow sea. I was terrified of whatever lurked in the water convinced that sharks would come and eat us. My father gripped my legs and whispered, “I’ve got you. You don’t have to be afraid.”

I don’t exactly know why this particular memory rests so clearly in my mind, but it’s a good one. That was my father in a nutshell.

I interviewed my parents for a memoir I’m currently working on. This is what I know of my father.

He was born in the small village of Khlong Dan, Thailand on October 21, 1943, though the official birth certificate indicates October 27 because of a typo (21 sounds like 27 in Thai) He was the youngest of nine kids. His parents immigrated from China and started a merchant business. For fear of being racially ostracized by the local Thai people the oldest brother changed their name from “Lim” to “Santativongchai” (he found the word in an old book)

They collected rain water off the storm gutters in order to drink. He didn’t get hie first pair of shoes until he was 10 years old. They were sandals, really. Knowing facts abut Western culture was cool and he had an insatiable desire to learn everything he could about America. Coming to the United States was a dream of his obsessed with Elvis Presley, Paul Anka, and movies like “Shane” He admits to being spoiled by his mother and says he was lazy during most of his childhood, but was gifted in math and science. And he truly was. He attended medical school, paid for by his older sister, Yawanit, and he came to Newark, New Jersey in 1969 to do his internship.

My mother followed a year later

His first car was a Red ‘69 Camaro. No air conditioning. He ran the car into the ground because he was unaware of the fact that you had to change the oil. He never owned a car before then.

This was the American dream.

I was born in 1975 and they soon made a mass exodus to Southern California along with many of their Thai doctor friends with brief career stops in Wykoff, New Jersey and Hopedale, Illinois until we settled in our newly built four bedroom home in Camarillo, CA.

He worked for the state of California as a pediatrician, and eventually as a cardiologist, and then a psychiatrist continuing his education over the years to fill the needs of the state. He was an accomplished man in his field.

He loved golf, tennis, and buying things he would see on TV. He loved Ralph Lauren clothing, he owned one of the first Apple computers, and he loved making weekly trips to Los Angeles to buy classical CDs and audio equipment.

Three weeks ago I stepped inside my parent’s home for the first time in over a year. The COVID-19 Pandemic had kept us apart . “Stay at home. We’ll see each other after this is all over.” my parents told me.

Under normal circumstances I would happily avoid their company for fear of constant nagging about a plethora of reasons which mostly dealt with my weight, or my political views.

But this was different.

My father had been diagnosed with Stage 4 liver cancer and he returned home to hospice care. My mother was helping him get situated on his favorite couch because he refused to use the hospital bed that hospice had offered him and recommend that he use.

They say that doctors make the worst patients.

Besides his stubbornness my mother was angry at him for not putting up a fight, turning down Chemotherapy and Immunotherapy and opting to just let the cancer take him. She herself having been a breast cancer survivor over 25 years ago (along with living with lupus for 45 years) could not comprehend the thought of just giving up. But my father knew the odds. He had taken one look at the CT scan and he knew the primary source was in the liver and it has metastasized to the lungs, his jaw, and his pelvis.

His body was dying but his mind was still as sharp as a tack.

I understood the diagnosis, as well. When speaking to the doctor on the phone he did not mince words by emphasizing quality of life. My father’s days were limited, and I was there to make the most of the time that was left between us before he departed.

“I have one last question for you before I go.” he said to me.

“Anything. What’s your question, Dad?”

“How much....do you earn annually?”

My mother and I quickly glanced at each other and we both immediately let out a huge laugh. “HA HA HA! You have one last question and that’s what you want to ask me?!”

He was always curious about my finances.

He is my Asian father.

Normally, this type of question would be a point of heated contention and it would typically result in an argument at a restaurant, and yet, here he is living his last weeks and he STILL wouldn’t let the question go. And this time, without argument, I simply tell him.

Why deny a dying man his last wish?

“I’M SO PROUD OF YOU!” he shouts as we all share in a good laugh.

“I have one more question...”

“What is it, Dad?”

“Why do you always get upset when I ask you that question?”

This too would have normally resulted in a heated discussion, but I simply gave him an honest and simple answer, “Because you taught me that it was rude to ask people that question.” And I left it at that.

My mother gets up and heads to the kitchen and it’s in this moment that my father pulls me in closer to discuss more pressing matters.

“I don’t want you to worry about me. I’ve accepted my fate and I’ve lived a good life. I’m worried about your mom. I want you to take care of her after I’m gone.”

“Of course.”

“I’ve saved up a lot of money. Use it to buy a house with a guest house for her. Make sure it has a big yard so she can do her gardening and she’ll be fine.”

“I promise, Dad. I’ll spoil her.”

“Good.”

My mother returns to the family room with an assortment of shirts for my father to wear. I grab a blue button up collared shirt from Tommy Bahama. “This shirt actually isn’t too shabby.”

“It was originally $125 and I got it for $90!”

Always in pursuit of looking his best while also landing a great deal.

He is my Asian father.

“If you like the shirts they’re yours now. All of this is yours.”

None of the items that my father owned interested me. What interested me was giving him one last amazing experience before he was gone. The one thing my father truly treasured among all his possessions was a one of the finest wine collections I had ever seen. It contained over 500 bottles of wines he had collected over the course of twenty years housed in three separate wine refrigerators, which were spread throughout different rooms in the house and sent their electricity bill skyrocketing to the moon, and my mother’s nerves to the very edge of insanity.

“Hey, what do you think about going into your wine collection and we drink the most expensive wine you have?”

“No,” he says hesitantly.

“But don’t you want to know what you bought? Don’t you want to at least know what the best wine you own tastes like? I don’t think you should leave this world without enjoying your one great vice in life.”

My father looks away from me and mutters, “No...It’s yours now. All of it.”

This is not how I want it to end. I want him to have one last good memory.

My mother interrupts, “I’m hungry. What are we having for lunch?”

I try to keep my father focused on his bucket list. I’m hoping for just one last memory, “Whatever you want, Dad. My treat.”

He looks at me and says, “I want a Pink’s hot dog.”

My mother and I look at each other in shock. This request from a man who was obsessed with his blood pressure. A man who constantly avoided salt like it was Kryptonite to Superman was now requesting for one of the saltiest most nitrate rich foods in America.

“With mustard and relish.”

25 minutes later I returned home with three sodium bombs per his request. My father, who hadn’t eaten in three days, grabbed a hold of his hot dog, and ate the entire thing. My father, a man who did everything in his power to stave off death by cardiovascular disease to the point of obsession, was indulging in the one thing he avoided like the plague.

SALT.

As I sat on the couch and watched him eat his hot dog I could see the look on his face as he solemnly took each bite thinking, “What was the point of being so scared for all these years?” I took solace in the fact that for the first time in my life, I saw him as a person unafraid.

Later that day, a few of his closest friends came over to wish him well. I met them at the front door, “Hey, do me a favor. Can you see if you can make him agree to having one last glass of wine?”

It was a good idea.

HIs friends all walked in, paid their respects, and then peppered him with little hints like, “Hey, how about one last sip of wine before you go?”

My dad finally agreed.

“That fridge has the best stuff!” my dad shouted as he pointed to the fridge closest to the door.

I was not as knowledgable about fine wines as my dad and his friends were. That’s what Google is for.

I reached into the back of the fridge and found a bottle of Opus One from 1995.

This was $600 bottle of wine. It wasn’t his best but it it would do nicely.

The room let out an audible “oooooh” when I entered the room with the bottle.

His best wine glasses were brought out, we each poured a glass, and we toasted my father. We share stories about his life, he boasts to his friends about my accomplishments, and we are basking in a moment of complete harmony.

For this moment in time, I was his perfect Asian son.

He thoughtfully studied the peaks generated by the swirling of the wine on the edge of the glass

“It’s been a good life. No regrets.”

I was glad I could give him this.

This week I bought that house for my mom. I told my father this as I fulfilled his last dying wish while I held his hand.

“I’ve got you, Dad. You don’t have to be afraid.”

“I’ve got you.”

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keshetchai · 3 years

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personal posting / alcoholic parent mention / medical

first mentioning that im furious at my primary care for not referring me for a covid vaccine because she can’t...prove i have asthma, because ??? “just because i prescribed an inhaler doesn’t mean you have asthma.” like, ...okay, whatever. thanks.

unfortunately, i do not feel excited for pesach. I actually love pesach. but I love it in person, face to face, at a table of people. i can’t have that. that’s probably for the best because as much as I love pesach, I don’t love a holiday with four cups of wine as a central ritual when my low-contact/estranged father has been an alcoholic for 10+ years now and his poison of choice is red wine. he’s hit the stage where he is dying slowly, but that could last years or months. I don’t know.

late december he was formally diagnosed with covid-19, when we thought he’d already caught it early on. then after recovering he had a stomach surgery scheduled for a separate issue, and basically the hospital had to stop operating because he was bleeding too heavily as a result of his enlarged liver. they stopped with only a small percent of surgery done, and stabilized him a bit, and then he got transported back to the US. because he basically hit his healthcare limit from private insurance in another country. now he’s on VA stuff. i think they recently discharged him, or will discharge him in san diego.

his kidneys and liver are failing, in addition to major intestinal issues, his gallbladder needing removing, etc. i mean, he will absolutely die of liver failure if he drinks any more. but relapse is almost an inevitability after forced sobriety while hospitalized.

his siblings - my aunts and uncle - all finally realize truly how bad it is. my aunt karen is close enough we were able to talk (masked, in person) about why I am extremely low contact with my dad, why I was frustrated my aunts and uncle kept asking me if I’d heard from my dad...etc. because like, I don’t. we talk on birthdays, father’s day, maybe new years, maybe once about my brother.

i showed her my texts history where it was literally just

2020 - my birthday, his birthday, question about my brother.

before that was 2019, i think an exchange about getting me off of his cell phone plan formally.

i gave her all the sordid details, about his drinking when he had custody visitation with me and my brother, about telling my high school teachers he was not my custodial parent/an alcoholic/unreliable, how there were a serious of fracture points in our relationship that broke it bit by bit until finally in college he spent father’s day weekend trying to convince me to volunteer to kick myself out of his apartment where i’d been sleeping on an air mattress and working as a temp because his second wife decided to rant to him how much she hated me and wanted me gone. how i sent him an email calculating his alcohol expenses weekly and told him he owed me money. a million other little things... and she listened and understood and sympathized and was mad on my behalf.

but i sent an email informing her siblings also of some of this stuff, about my feeling that my dad needs rehab and that we can’t force him to go, and neither of them responded. and i know it got sent, because karen replied to my email too.

the other two have been silent. what hurts is that of course, my other aunt A did text me the other day, asking if i could join a family zoom meeting saturday night, with my dad, to check in on him. no response to anything I said about how I feel about my parent who is an addict and slowly dying, lmao. just join a zoom meeting. I had to pry to ask if it was like, going to be an ~intervention~ or something.

i was so relieved to be able to say “sorry, not this weekend. those are the first two nights of passover, I won’t be available.” i told her i could be there some other evening, but not to hold up everything on my account, even if my dad did ask if i would attend. i pity him, i do. but i can’t help but resent everything done, and what i learned when karen told me he inherited about $40,000 in early 2018? I think? and he’s spent it all. he was working and he still spent it. i know when my mom sued for back owed child support, he settled. I don’t think he paid up in full - which that inheritance might’ve done.

when my grandmother had lost an eye due to cancer, she also funded his trip to the ukraine to meet some woman. she needed that money to get a glass eye. but delayed it for her son. he ran out of money on this pointless trip and his siblings bailed him out. they’ve been paying for his plane tickets. he continued to ask his dying mother for money, until karen intervened a little, and even then...

he ran through forty thousand dollars after my grandma died. and didn’t think about anyone but himself with that money. my aunt basically - i mean in nicer words - explained i won’t inherit anything most likely, he probably doesn’t have assets anymore, and i was like, well, yeah.

...this sounds cold and awful but i have assumed for awhile my dad will die young and also that his siblings will have to pay for the funeral. even if i felt obligated to do something as his first born child -- I don’t have the money for funeral expenses, mostly because of him!

anyways i’m disappointed my family didn’t acknowledge anything i said, i’m sad pesach is going to be isolated again, i’ve been stressed about dealing with expectations about how i should feel about my dad dying, with digging up old resentment and hurt and having to think about him more than i ever normally do...

i finally submitted an intake form for the local jewish fam services therapy offerings and they were like “we don’t have openings now, we may in spring” today and i emailed back like “i’m fine waiting, it’s already spring....” time isn’t real anyways!

maybe i should look for other therapists right now but i wanted to go with jfs first lol. just. sigh.

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the-sober-story-so-far · 3 years

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A pre-snippet to the past 10 years

Hi there, i’ve got quite a few posts to catch up on since i’m on day 3 of sobriety but I feel like any story should start with where I was these past 10 years. I became a mother at 19, happily. My son was planned, I had met the love of my life a bassist in a metal band and fell in love with the lifestyle that came with it.

When I had first met Matthew I had never partied before, I was in a very abusive relationship before where I wasn’t allowed to experience what most teens did. Parties, drugs,drinking, hell even my proms. So when I met Matt (before i was pregnant keep in mind) I went wild. We would party almost every night, we fell in love fast too. One of those loves that just hit you right in your face like a bullet. We were inseparable and we were both wild as could be. Once we had decided to slow down and stop going out as much we decided we wanted to get married and start a family together no matter how young we knew that regardless it was meant to be. So we were engaged, we were actually trashed when we got engaged it was pretty punk rock if I say so myself. In the middle of an alley in baltimore, he didn’t have a ring and it didn’t matter. We were just jamming to some Coheed and Cambria in my car drinking a 30 pack parked in this alley when he suddenly told me to get out of the car and follow him. At that point he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I thought he was just drunk or joking at first and I remember I kept asking him the next day if he was serious well, obviously it turns out he was.

So fast forward a bit, we were engaged and started trying to get pregnant and it took a few months but with luck we ended up pregnant. We decided to get married at the courthouse since we were already on the way to getting married that year anyways. Then we had our beautiful son, I was sober my entire pregnancy. I remember the first week after I had him I got trashed though just to celebrate 9months of pain and hell but at this point i was still a social drinker. The toddler years were happy years, we would only drink on the weekends or here and there when friends would come over. It wasn’t to the point where I had a problem yet.

Then he turned 4, and life got really hard. Problems with my family arose, financial problems as well. My mental health declined and i was diagnosed with Bipolar Type 2, as well as OCD, Severe Depressive, Severe Anxiety and Borderline personality Mercurial type. As well as having PTSD from my childhood with my parents. My mom almost passed when I was younger from liver failure. She ended up having a transplant and living. I had an emotionally abusive father, my mother’s mental health was never stable I actually use to remember her waking me up at 4 am and screaming at me as a child for things I had done the day before. I witnessed so many fights and insane moments a child shouldn’t. I then ended up in an abusive relationship from 14-18 with a boy who would hit me, verbally abuse me, gaslight me, manipulate me and then one day eventually sexually assault me in my sleep. The thing about trauma is it always catches up to you.

And that’s where I think it all started going wrong, it began catching up. I moved out in my first apartment with my husband and my son and finally had freedom. We had lots of parties, I met lots of “friends” who only cared about where the next party was or who had the drugs. I began partying more and more, and made decisions I was not proud of. Including hurting my husband more than I ever could have even fathomed, I don’t like to speak of it. I have faced my guilt about it daily but in short I was unfaithful. Even if it was one time, it was inexcusable. My cousin had moved in with me, and though I love her back in that time she wasn’t the best influence either. She always wanted to party or smoke weed as well. We became partners in crime, we always wanted to get into some chaos and have fun. Then we were forced to move back to my parents all 4 of us this time due to a shooting in my apartment complex where we were no longer safe. It was unbearable living there during that time, before my mom began fixing herself and facing her own demons and dealing with my father and his emotionally abusive ways.

So we ended up moving to my grandparents, where we were later kicked out of for having people over partying almost every night. At that point I had also assumed I wanted to be polyamorous, which indeed I am not. I am bisexual yes, but the polyamory was just an excuse in my own mind not to work on my own marriage and fix the damage I had unleashed upon it. When we lived at my grandparents was when the peak in my drinking began. I began drinking daily with my cousin starting early in the morning drinking bottles of rum and vodka all day to the point of blacking out, mixing clonopin with it. Smoking spice, smoking weed, just drugs and booze constantly. One night I overdosed and slit my wrists so bad that the scars are still there to this day I am lucky to be alive and you’d have thought that would have been enough to stop me from my path of destruction but it did not.

I did end up quitting spice, once we were kicked out of my grandparents I saved money at my job and we rented a place with my cousin and a “friend”, the drinking only got worse there. More parties, more drugs. I started dabbling with Molly and Adderall while i was there and almost ecstasy. My mental health declined so bad due to being worried about a relationship with a girl I thought I loved and spending my money on substance that we lost our house after I lost my job.

I moved back home again with my parents, just my husband, my son and myself and the drinking continued then for a few months it was daily drinking until one day I did finally get sober and quit drinking, months later I started to become incredibly sick and was still sober but thought I had cancer from how violently ill I was but I was too afraid to go to a doctor for it, instead in my fucked up mind I decided to attempt suicide twice. I lost many friends along this journey from the choices I made, and from who I was. I felt that being sick was my penance for being such a piece of shit for so long.

Months passed after this, I was sick for at least 9 more months vomiting at least 9 times daily sometimes more. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t shit and I knew something was wrong but I had doctors who didn’t care to find out, who brushed it off as IBS because I was “young and healthy”. 9 months they let it go, it turned out to be my appendix and a dead bowel. The day my appendix ruptured sepsis poured into my abdomen and i was dying, I was actually dying like I had wished for all those years and then it was in that moment that I knew I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live, I wanted to fight. I had my surgery and had 3 months of severe complications including seizures, fluid ruptures and a massive hole left in my abdomen from those fluid ruptures. September of that same year my intestine popped up below the surface of my skin and I had to have my first hernia surgery, it was successful until November of last year when it tore open and I had my final one. During the process I was foolish enough to keep the same doctors, to be dismissed over and over until the first hernia surgery when I had finally had enough and found doctors who actually cared. However, now I have severe PTSD with practitioners not to mention a nurse who physically and sexually assaulted me and a doctor who possibly did while I was under anesthesia. This is getting back to the trauma creeping up on you, it all has a purpose.

So, I went through severe anxiety, and experienced what real PTSD was. I was still sober until one night my husband and his friends and myself were all hanging out in the garage and they said have a beer you’ll be fine and that was when it all started again.

I used to look forward to every Friday and Saturday just wanting to get drunk to feel something, all the while i was still using marijuana daily as well. Well, maybe not to feel something i’d say more to feel nothing. And then it went from 6 drinks to 12 drinks, from Saturdays and Sundays to every day of the week. From 6 packs daily to 12 packs daily. From 12 packs daily to 15 drinks daily, from 15 to 18 and so on. This was a year ago i relapsed and this is my first 3 days sober since it all happened.

This is to document my journey, this is to look back and feel pride in how far i’ve come and this is so that I know I can do anything and how much I refuse to go backwards. If you’re reading this, i hope if you are in a place where I was it gives you strength, I hope you never feel alone.

Welcome to my sobriety diaries.

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cdrash13 · 5 years

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“And all at once, I came alive!” -Lauren Daigle

You are capable of change.

I’m going to do my best to summarize the most horrible moments in my life...and tell you how I got through them. This will be long and personal. Here we go :

I’ve always been in church. I remember attending with my parents and watching my mother as she softly prayed to herself. I admired how soft her features would become when in the presence of the Lord; how strong her faith is when faced with what appears to be a challenge a person should not be able to overcome.

I remember the glint in her eyes when she would reach out to my friends, love and a definite assurance that God loves them and has a plan for them. I remember how she would pat my head, gently running her fingers through my hair. She would smile sweetly at me, almost as if she had a secret that I wasn’t in on.

“God’s gonna be with you through it all. He hears you. He sees you, He sees all. Don’t forget him in your heartache.”

As a young child, I never fully understood why my mother would remind me of this regularly. Deep in my bones, I knew that life required heartache and suffering to create character; I also understand that when walking in faith, you’re going to be attacked. Forever. I waited...and heartache did in fact come.

My mother was diagnosed with Lymphoma.

I was raped at 15.

My father died of liver failure in 2016.

My childhood friend committed suicide last year, 2018.

I wailed, I wept and screamed. I begged God to hear me, I pleaded for Him to get me through this. Though I couldn’t see or hear Him...I knew He was there. You feel His presence in your bones, your entire being. I always felt Him there, in the depths of my heartache.

“Be brave, my daughter. Keep going. You will not fail, for I am with you...”

I kept going...but it was not easy. It was hell actually. I can truthfully say, I walked through Hell, but I persevered. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that the Valley would end. I knew that my suffering would only make me into the person I needed when this all happened; I knew I was going to become a warrior. I’ve discovered that change can be both in an instant and a journey that requires years of work. I struggled, like so many before me to change. I look back to the girl I used to be three years ago, battle-worn and begging to be heard.

I am OFTEN told, even to this DAY...that I am an angry person. Let me ask you, friends, how would you react to my traumas? Be sincere with yourself, be honest with me.

My Mothers Cancer.

My mother's cancer took up most of my life. I have a small family, close-knit and full of caretakers. We worked together, my father and I, as the three of us went up against the sickness that was trying to take my mother from us. I remember so many tears...I remember my parents trying to prepare me for the day they wouldn’t be here anymore; I remember asking God in anger, “Why are you letting this happen?” I never heard anything. But I kept praying, we kept working together. And even though her cancer sadly went to stage four as of December of 2018; we’re still here.

I learned to be patient in my mother's sickness. I learned to cut myself off, that I would need to sacrifice my teenage years to support her. I accepted that my free time would consist of a church and a few weekends at the skating rink. I could maintain my youth while trying to grow up in the privacy of my home while I helped my parents. Did I lose it sometimes? absolutely. I snapped, screamed, and often had meltdowns with my parents, like any teenager.

But we got through it. We still loved each other. We still prayed, and we still believed that God had a purpose for this.

Coping after rape.

I was angry. I was full of rage towards churches in my town that I had trusted to come too with my heartache from being raped; I was slut-shamed. I was blamed. They asked me why I didn’t fight hard enough; I fought with everything inside of me. I screamed, I crawled, and I didn’t give up. I will never forget those in the church that looked at me...disgusted.

“What were you wearing?”

Were you praying enough?”

“God’s trying to get your attention.”

No. That’s not how God works. At least not the God I know. The Great I Am. He has claimed me for good, and He will ALWAYS hear me. He will ALWAYS love me. He will not throw me away. He is not you, and for you to be in church, and to blame a child who trusted you...it is not of God. I mourned the loss of my girlhood. I asked God to walk me through the weight of what was stolen from me. There was many times I snapped, There were many days filled with resentment and confusion as I transitioned into adulthood. I had to know and believe...that people, were not God.

I used my anger to fuel my will. I would stand against what these people thought of me and spat at my heart. I would say no, I fought...and I’m going to keep fighting.

My father's death.

Let me tell you...there has been no greater loss in my life...then the loss of my father. My father and I were a tag team, we did everything together. He made time every Sunday afternoon to have tea parties with me. He taught me how to shoot my first bow, an English longbow at the age of four; I still remember him cheering for me when I hit the target.

He taught me how to waltz in our living room. Always ending the evening to slow dance with my mother before bed...I remember thinking, “I hope I find someone who loves me the way daddy loves mama...” I remember my daddy setting me down as he told me what he wanted for my life.

“You become strong. You get smart. And you find somebody who loves AND treats you well. Don’t you EVER settle for less.”

He encouraged me to read constantly. He often would read with me late at night when he got back home from working late shifts at the hospital; he was a nurse. We read about everything! My favorite though was the galax. My father and I are a bit of Astrophiles. I remember being so excited when dad would ask me if I read anything about a constellation, he would follow up with, “You wanna go find it outside together?”

He would tell me about the stars, pointing out constellations and telling me the history behind them. He told me he love Orion...it reminded him of me. A hunter. I often thought of Artemis, the Greek Goddess when he told me this. I would swell with pride, determined to become the strong woman my father hoped I would be. I remember how much he wanted me to be my own hero, be my own savior. He didn’t want a princess for a daughter, he wanted a hero. He didn’t know...and I should’ve told him more often...but he is my hero.

His sickness came quick, too quick. Within a few months, I suddenly found myself clutching my father's hand. I remember telling him I loved him...we both knew it was the last thing we would ever say to one another. The next day, he was brought back to my childhood home; he was comatose. He died the next morning at 4 am.

I will never forget the sound that came out of my chest, my entire being. I ached with loss. I was willing to drown in the loss of my father and let it consume me whole. Over the next two years, I fought with my depression, my loss, my grief. There were days I couldn’t feel anything...I couldn’t see anything but a little girl who would give anything to have her daddy back. I cried every day. It took me a long time to see...but I wasn’t alone, my father was not gone.

He was still with me. I could see him looking back at me in the mirror. Bright blue eyes that screamed with intensity. I could see him in the way my friends loved me, the way they cared for me in my grief. I could find him in all the people he cared for, all the people he had saved as a nurse. I found him in the scent of pipe tobacco...I found him the heart of the woods where he taught me how to climb trees.

“You gotta be strong. You gotta make it to the top, sweetie. You gotta get above it all to see where you need to go.”

I took three years, but I can say without a shadow of a doubt...I’m okay. I’ve climbed a multitude of trees, I’ve read a lot of books, I’ve been star gazing for a while now, and I bought a lot of pipe tobacco candles. Dad, I love you I can never convey how much I love you. You take up every part of my heart, you are here. I know I’ve been a mess...but I’ve gotten through it. I keep going, and I’m gonna be the woman you wanted me to be. Your hero.

My friend's death.

Her name was Jenny. We grew up together. She was part of my family. We loved her...we loved her with everything we had. She came over to my grandmas and I remember always laughing with her. I remember lots of malt milkshakes and tv marathons of American Horror Story. Jenny was a ray of sunshine and a ball of fun.

Jenny battled with depression. She had suffered immense heartache. She drank to forget, she drank to cope. The drinking got to out of hand, and ultimately, it killed her. I remember my mother calling me the morning she died, I was at work...but it didn’t stop the gut-wrenching cry that escaped me. I cried the entire day...I cried and cried and cried.

But I had one hope, the ONLY hope that had gotten me through ALL OF THIS.

God. I had the Lord.

And I knew...I knew, that He had both Jenny and my father in His hands. I knew she wasn’t sad anymore. I knew I would see her again one day. There are still days I cry for her. There are still days I’m angry at myself for not reaching out enough. There are days I struggle with it.

But I know our days are numbered. I know and believe God’s word, His promises. He is with us...through the valley. Through the shadow of death. I remember every moment He was with me. I remember that He got me through all of this. I remember that He loved me despite every time I snapped and screamed. I remember that He loved me despite how hateful I could be. I remembered that He didn’t see my scars, my heartache; He just saw his daughter.

I say this with full and complete confidence: Any reaction towards anger and pain that I vocalized during these periods of my life, are justified. I will not ever apologize for the anger that seeped into my soul. I will not apologize for my defenses, I needed them. You might need them...and that’s okay.

Change is painful. It’s demanding. But it’s possible to be something different...you don’t have to be full of anger like I was. You don’t have to suffer find rage as fuel to fight for others; find goodness, find love. As sappy as it sounds...remember that love is the driving force that gave of Jesus. Remember his suffering? and how he endured? he endured for us, for you.

I kept my mind on him. No matter how sick and sad I was. I knew if I could just push through, just one more day...that it would be okay. And guess what? it is okay. Fight those battles...defend the weak and broken. Be the driving force, plant your feet on the ground and remember that you were born for this. You were born to survive.

People told me I was selfish for being angry. They told me I would always be the battle-torn girl. They are wrong.

Every time I need to remember that God is with me, I listen to Rescue <3 by Lauren Daile. He will always come for us, He will always fight for us, He will ALWAYS rescue us.

#sunlight #lookup #brave #bravery #loss #grief #coping #cancer #suicide #death #rape #survivor #iremember #blog #god #religon #faith #joan of arc

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markgallacher · 6 years

Text

DISRUPTED

A week before my best friend M– died, I had a dream where I was travelling somewhere with unidentified friends. We were flying somewhere and the last call for the boarding gate was announced over the public announcement system. But we were not at an airport; we were in Glasgow Central Station. The boarding gate was behind some sort of large internal building structure that was accessed through a small walkway. My companions had reached the walkway. They briefly called to me before they moved on with their hand luggage. I knew where to go - just over there. Over there. But the floor was polished and it curved. I kept slipping and trying to stand up. An alarm began to sound, like the sound effect from the LOST TV series, its volume and frequency increasing. I repeatedly tried to get my footing and then despair hit me, as I knew I wasn’t going to make it. I WASN’T GOING TO MAKE IT! – and then I woke up.

A week later, M– was dead. He was 46 years old. It had taken cancer two years to kill him.

M–’s illness started with terrible pain in his arm that turned out to be lung cancer – a tumour creeping from the top of his lung into the plexus of nerves near his neck. The doctors eventually managed to kill that tumour, but not before the cancer had metastasised to his liver. The cancer was aggressive. Eventually M– had tumours other places and his liver was gone. Along the way, he suffered all the physical distress, mental anguish and humiliation a fatal disease and its treatment can bring to bear on one person. It says something about the man that in those two years, he married, visited Germany, France and Italy. He renovated a house in the country in Denmark, went to music festivals, applied for citizenship for him and his kids, and kept his family and friends from total despair. I don’t know if he kept despair at bay for himself. I sometimes imagined he was like a boxer on the ropes in the 11th. Heroic and slowly failing in that cruel light. I imagined he was agile enough so that the worst of it failed to land the knockout blow. But there were callous uppercuts that hurt. The bell was never going to sound. And though we tried to hide it, there were gasps and anguished moans from the darkened stands, our distance to the ring dictated by the bonds that bind, the circumstances of our lives or just by how much suffering at close quarters we could stand.

It says a lot about M– that he threw a small party for his close friends two months before he died - when he knew he would die in a matter of months. There were seven of us. It was an idyllic summer in Denmark. Record-breaking summer days. Sunsets and sunrises ablaze. Time slow and lazy like a slack river. M– made a speech beforehand; we were gathered around the kitchen worktop where he was preparing the meal. He told us the end was coming and there was nothing we could do about it. He wasn’t upset about his mortality. He was really upset about leaving his wife and children behind. But he had lived a fuller life than most. He’d seen the world. And he was lucky that it would be the liver that would go first. He’d fall into a coma and not wake up. Not the worst way to go. No pain. ‘Now,’ he said voice strong. ‘Let’s have a party.’ And that’s what we did. Just laughter, wine, seafood, good music and those strange floating smiles people make when they are immensely happy and their hearts are breaking at the same time.

Just weeks before he died, M– took his wife and kids to Italy. In the photographs, he looks like a healthy, happy father. He does not look like a man who is dying and who will die very soon. Planned as a last trip with his kids, he was forced to cut the holiday short because basically, his body was done. But not his mind. Not yet.

Still, pain, meds, exhaustion. When he came back, the sense that things would go fast.

M– left a 13-year-old daughter, an 11-year-old son, a widow who’d only met him four years ago, his parents, a sister, an ex-wife and mother to his children who’d known him for 25 years, near friends, far friends, work associates and all those people who couldn’t help but like him. Circles of loss of decreasing intensity, expanding out from his disrupted timeline.

Fate so cruel, you wanted to throw rocks at it.

I had told M– repeatedly we would grow old together. Our sons would drive us to some cosy café where we would drink expensive beers in late afternoon sunshine and take satisfaction from our ordinary lives, discuss all the books we had read, the movies we had seen together. Then at some point, one of our sons would come back and drive us home. When M– was first diagnosed with cancer, I told him that I had written a letter of complaint and mailed it. He asked me for the address. M– told me about some of the treatment choices he was having to make. ‘Hard-core decisions,’ he called them. He was still defiant then. Angry. ‘Fuck cancer.’ There was no question of his dying. Two years later at 2 am at that last party, I embraced my friend and asked him how much time did he want – take it from me. A week, a month, two years. It’s yours. ‘I’ll take as much as you can spare,’ he said and smiled wanly. One by one, we were all embracing M– .

But now when I look back to those moments, I think the giving was all the other way.

In the days after his death, it’s me asking M– for strength. FB pictures, text messages, Messenger threads, brief smartphone film clips. Nothing is banal. All of it is rendered precious, poignant. It has become prophetic. Digital ghosts haunting my grief-stricken now. Even his music playlists take on significance that takes the breath away. Why’d he have to pick that song Waiting’ Around To Die? The desperate search for one more recording I’ve never seen or heard. One more message. One more SMS. One more digital illusion. In those first days after his death, I desperately followed M–’s stats: It’s now been 24 hours since M– logged onto FB. It’s now been three days since he played a song on Spotify. Months since his last SMS. A world ago since his last post on Messenger. I was aware that I could be losing my mind. That I actually believed, I was going to find a Ted Talk from Beyond the Grave delivered by M–.

For days, I hunted down pictures of M–. In many of them, he looks over his shoulder at the camera, easy smile, glass of wine, preparing a meal or about to speak.

The strange compulsion that you could travel back in time. Send a warning.

You could map M–’s decline by the frequency of my visits. Once every couple of weeks. Once a week. Once every three days. M–’s last week went fast. His life force seemed like a country-sized shelf of ice that threatening to cleave for two years, cleaves from the main body. His last hours a drift of coma and delirium, watched over by his wife and nurse. I visited him on what turned out to be his last Monday. He said how tired he was. I visited him on the last Wednesday, he could still hold a conversation but he was like a man behind a waterfall. I wasn’t always sure if I was only seeing the shape of him. His mind submerged, sank, and came back again, paler than before. Like the fading light in the gathering darkness of a coming storm. When I drove back home, my heart broke. I wept for M– and his wife and children. And I wept for myself because I was losing my best friend.

On the last Friday, I asked my wife to drive out with me, afraid I would not be able to drive back. M– refused to see us, his wife tearful at the door, with some boxes of old children’s toys and clothes we were to take to the charity shop. She couldn’t stand at the door for long. M– could not be left alone. Not now. We heard him call her name.

He died about midnight that Sunday.

I miss my friend.

- September 2018

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starsandboulevardsroleplay · 6 years

Photo

Dramatic Plot Request ✖ Approved ✖ Jameson Cartwright ✖ @james-cartwright-md

‣ SYNOPSIS ↴

This is a long-term plot that caused Jameson to return to Los Angeles. The cancer plot includes symptoms, treatment, and side effects of his cancers over his lifetime.

‣ CHARACTERS INVOLVED ↴

The Cartwrights and extended family

Friends that Jameson or his family confide in

CC West doctors and nurses

Needed Characters are HERE

Anyone who wishes to be involved is welcome to be but must coordinate with Daniel first.

‣ PLOT AIDS AND TAGS ↴

Plot Tag: SABRjamesonDPA

There are no plot aides for other characters because the only characters that will know about this will be those Jameson or his family choose to tell.

Trigger Warnings:

TW: medical

TW: cancer

TW: lymphoma

TW: illness

TW: surgery

TW: medication

TW: radiotherapy

TW: chemotherapy

TW: infertility

TW: death

TW: leukemia

‣ DETAILS ↴

January 2017 - March 2018: Busy with his residency James assumed his fatigue was normal. He also assumed his weight loss was from his loss of appetite and were caused by a busy schedule and lack of culinary talent. Those factors kept him from regularly eating or hitting the gym. As time went on he experienced other symptoms like breathlessness and persistent coughing. James ignored the symptoms of a serious illness as a bug that he picked up at work. His visits to family in LA or England were infrequent and though they commented on his weight loss they had all been through residencies and agreed and attributed the illness and other symptoms to the fact that he was under alot of stress and a busy schedule.

March 2018 - May 2018: Severe headaches, exhaustion, and back pain led to some absences form work that resulted in a written warning. Upon a board meeting they decided to have Jameson evaluated before adding the warning to his permanent folder when his peers expressed their concerns. The results of blood work and scans were surprising because of Jameson’s age, health, and family history. In April of 2018 he was officially diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma in his tonsils. Taking time to analyze the situation and discuss his options with his family, he applied and requested a transfer to UCLA. His mother hoped he would return to England where family specialists could treat him. But he wanted to remain independent and chose to see amazing doctors in LA. And he didn’t want to worry his parents.

June 2018: James made arrangements and closed on a small house in LA and used his accrued time off to move back to the city. He chose to do this quietly because of the circumstances. Those he lost touch with he hopes to reconnect with and make amends. He will continue testing in this month to determine the severity of his NHL and what method they will use to attack or remove the cancer.

July 2018: James is given recommendations of a tonsillectomy and radiotherapy. He elected to wait for further test results to feel more certain that the cancer was not more severe and requiring a more intense broad solution such as chemotherapy or lymph node removal. Though he was now showing signs of anaemia and poor liver function test (LFT) results. He holds of until after his family’s vacation for a final decision.

August 2018: James talks to his family on the trip and decides to have a tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy (T&A). He chose to remove the adenoids because of abnormal swelling. And will have a low-dose rate-Brachytherapy surgery after the T&A. He will spend the last two weeks of August in the hospital and be allowed visitors outside his room. There will be no visitor restrictions after his release. Post-Op he will experience the following symptoms from the surgeries: severe pain in his throat, jaw, and ears; varying levels of fever due to the combination of his surgeries and the cancer being attacked, which may concern visitors due to the frenzy this creates in his room; nausea; vertigo; vomiting; halitosis (temporary and unnoticed because of seclusion); and swelling of the neck that inhibits speech.

September 2018 - 2030: He remains diligent about every check up and voices his concerns with doctors over various aches and pains. As the years go on he slowly accepts that he is in remission. James never drinks alcohol and never uses non-prescription drugs/medication, and lives a very active and healthy lifestyle. If he has a wife they will have difficulty having children.

August 2031: Cancer is found in James’s lymph nodes and has spread throughout his lymphatic system. Adult NHL required a new battery of tests for his stage and whether he also had E or S. He does not. He is found to be at Stage II. He spends time in England to be treated by specialist. They perform chemotherapy and then a stem cell transplant. After an extensive stay including concerns over his ability to build his immune system, he returns home in remission once more.

August 2031 - August 2034: He continues his diligent check ups and self-monitoring of his health. However, low bone density impacted his ability to continue his same level of activity. He experiences a few breaks and fractures before reserving himself to low impact sports and methods of exercise. If he has a wife and they are trying to have children they will discover he is infertile.

August 2034: After catching a cold that graduates to bronchitis and then pneumonia, doctors realize Jameson’s immune system’s health is rapidly deteriorating. During his stay he begins to cough blood, urinate blood, and experience nosebleeds. The initial evaluation showed he had myelodysplastic syndrome. Further testing showed he had acute myeloid leukemia. In early Stage IV, his family respects his wishes and let him go home and receive radiotherapy to address symptoms and maintain a certain quality of life until he passes.

January 3, 2035: Jameson will enter a coma in his sleep and will die from multisystem organ failure and had already signed a DNR.

Resources:

https://www.lymphoma.ca/lymphoma/lymphoma-101/symptoms-lymphoma

https://www.myvmc.com/diseases/tonsil-cancer-lymphoma-of-the-tonsil/

https://www.myvmc.com/symptoms/anaemia/

https://www.myvmc.com/investigations/liver-function-tests-lfts/

https://www.entnet.org//content/tonsillectomy-and-adenoids-postop

https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/brachytherapy/about/pac-20385159

https://www.cancer.gov/common/popUps/popDefinition.aspx?id=CDR0000045907&version=patient&language=English&dictionary=Cancer.gov

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/acute-myelogenous-leukemia/symptoms-causes/syc-20369109

https://www.cancer.gov/types/lymphoma/patient/adult-nhl-treatment-pdq#link/_158

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/acute-myelogenous-leukemia/symptoms-causes/syc-20369109

https://www.myvmc.com/treatments/radiotherapy/

#SABRjameson #SABRjamesonDPA #tw: medical #tw: cancer #tw: lymphoma #tw: illness #tw: surgery #tw: medication #tw: radiotherapy #tw: radiation #tw: chemotherapy #tw: infertility #tw: death #tw: leukemia #SABRdpa #SABRdpapproval

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kekabumi · 4 years

Text

The Big C

by Connie Khong

Cancer - something that seemed like it only happened in movies or that it is someone else's story and not my reality. Unfortunately, my first touch with cancer was when we found out that my beloved uncle, my mother's brother, was diagnosed with nose cancer. I was still in early secondary school, then my father suffered the same fate when I was in university.

Both experiences were different and yet so similar at the same time - but nothing could ever prepare me or my family for that. It was difficult to see your loved ones go through such a painful process, and at that point of time, you wish you can just, take away all their pain.

My Ah Pek had to undergo radiotherapy when chemotherapy didn't have much effect on his cancer anymore. He was such a jovial person and was set on enjoying life to the fullest when he found out he was diagnosed. He was set on beating cancer with all his might - but the treatment really took a toll on him. I was still too young to properly understand the stress and strain that my family was going through at the time - I knew it was always there, and most of the time, my coping mechanisms were to pretend like everything was okay. To treat him like nothing has changed so he wouldn't feel any different.

That one fateful day came when my dad picked me up from school, and he uttered those dreaded words: Your Ah Pek has passed away. I couldn't believe it. It seemed so unreal. It only hit me when I heard my Ama walk through the doors as she returns from the nursing home where he stayed at during his final days, wailing her heart out. I could never forget the look in her eyes, her sense of loss to lose her son. Only love can leave you feeling like that.

Years later, it happened again. This time, it was my beloved Papi. He was unwell for the longest time; he kept coughing and it felt like it wasn’t getting any better. We kept telling him to go to the doctors and have it checked out but he kept brushing it off and delayed the visit to the hospital. I guess fear was overwhelming for him - I think he had an inkling of what it was, he said he suspected that it might be cancer when everyone kept pushing him to go to the clinic. He was terrified to find out.

He eventually did - and the local doctor seemed anxious, and wasn’t happy with what he discovered. He said Papi's liver feels hard and that he suspects it might be something worse. He wrote a referral letter for us to take him to the hospital for another thorough inspection. They ran more tests before confirming that he was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer. By then, it already spread to his liver.

Nothing prepared us for this - not even with the loss of my Ah Pek many years ago. Once again, I find myself running away when things get difficult. I didn't know it then that I was coping differently - I was staying on campus at the time and could decide when to head home when I am ready to face it all. I didn't want my Papi to see me sad or at loss for words when he wasn't getting better. I felt the need to be the positive one so that he doesn't give up on this battle.

Whenever I'm back to see him or to accompany him for his visits, he would always worry about me and kept telling me that I need not be there. Yet at the same time, he would say that he is glad that I am around. It was the only way I knew how to support him; to be present for a man of little words.

His chemotherapy worked but only for a short while. He finally decided that he didn't want to go through it - so we chose to respect his wishes.

When he stopped, it all happened so quickly. I remember patting his back when he was coughing from drinking water one night. I was packing for a short trip to Japan with my university mates and he couldn't sleep - so I fetched him some water and told him if he needed anything he could just informed me. He said he's fine and not to worry about him. He was too sleepy to say goodbye when I left for my flight the next day. I didn't know it then, but that was the last time I would see him alive.

Throughout the short trip, I got updates from Mami that he wasn't doing so well and that the doctors told us to prepare ourselves. I was telling her that I'll cancel all my trips upon returning to spend more time with him. Short of a couple days of me returning, I got that dreaded phone call from her: Papi breathed his last.

It felt unreal to be back in the house when I landed and he is not there. It felt unreal to see him lying in the casket. Everything felt unreal. But at the same time, that's how much I love Papi. As much as it hurts to know he is not around anymore, I also find comfort in knowing he is no longer in pain. Both Papi and Ah Pek dealt with this bravely until the end.

It's not easy battling cancer and it's not easy supporting someone through that as well. But, it's important that we do; that we show up and be there for them all the way during this difficult time. It's our way of being brave and giving them courage to carry on the fight.

And it's so important to go for health checks, and get yourself tested. Early detection saves lives. Cancer does not necessarily translate to death, if detected early. So, please don't sit around and worry about the what-ifs and instead, take an active role to play a part for your health.

Find out more and learn more on how you can help prevent cancer at worldcancerday.org.

#cancer #worldcancerday

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jenroses · 7 years

Text

Sometimes it’s really hard to write about other people’s happy times when it reminds me of when I was strong and thought I could do almost anything.

Sometimes it’s an escape, but sometimes it’s just a really rough reminder of how hard I’m struggling right now.

The true answer to “How are you” behind the cut. It ain’t pretty.

The nausea is bad right now. Every week it’s a little worse, Saturdays. The dosage hasn’t changed, once a week I sit on the toilet lid while my husband is in the bathtub, and I swab alcohol between the stretch marks on my belly while he reads some old book or another (literally old, he’s on this kick and I think he’s up to the late 18th century? Maybe 19th? Idk.)

I swab the top of the tiny vial of vile chartreuse poison. It’s thick: in the little glass container it rolls thinner than honey, but thicker than oil.

I pull out a syringe and draw .8 ml of air into it to push into the vial, in order to not create too much suction inside when I’m trying to pull the thick liquid into the needle.

The flashback comes when I get ready to inject, every time. When I was pregnant, I pushed a much larger amount of fire into my belly twice a day, every day, for most of ten months. It hurt, it bruised, and it kept me from clotting, and it meant that I survived a pregnancy without clots, long enough to give birth to a bundle of ornery sunshine.

Methotrexate does not keep me from clotting. This is poison, and it’s only once a week, and the needle doesn’t even hurt going in. It doesn’t hurt pushing the medication in. But I know what’s coming.

I do this before I head to bed. It’s almost always six or seven in the morning, because I dread it, and I want to milk the last of the “feeling okay” I’ve finally managed to achieve by the time I’m six days out from the shot. So I stay up too late, and then collapse into bed and cease to function for the rest of the weekend.

I sometimes think that I’m making too much of it. It’s only a little bit of chemo. For cancer, it would be 10-25 ml, not .8. It could be worse. I could be taking it orally and killing off my gastrointestinal tract. With the blood thinner I’m on, that seemed like a bad idea, so shots it is.

When I let myself think that way, I do ill-advised things like decide I can fix shit and push through, like I did today when there was a crisis in the house over the fact that a DVD had come from the library as a blu-ray, for which we have no player. So I went to a store that had no electric cart to buy things that are literally way more expensive than a season of Game of Thrones could ever be, and came home to discover that there was literally no way to install anything on the computer that was supposed to get it. I sat there for an hour trying, on the wrong chair, which I should not have done, and then spent another hour trying to figure it out on a different computer. I emerged victorious, with a migraine and a blossoming fibro flare.

I take... take feels like the wrong word. I subject myself to methotrexate in order to keep my immune system under control, to prevent my body from waging war on my gut, my liver, my salivary glands, my lacrimal glands and the membranes around my knuckles. It doesn’t work nearly as well as steroids at making me feel good, but might have fewer side effects long term? It’s hard to say. Something is going to kill me, and whether it’s the rheumatoid arthritis or the medications to fight the rheumatoid arthritis, or the blood clotting disorder, or the meds I take to prevent clots from forming (when the real problem is that once clots form, they just don’t STOP)... I don’t know. My grandmother lived to be 101 and right now that feels like too damn long.

I have children. I have a husband. They need me, god knows why, and so I stay. I spent most of my time with my son today yelling at him. He’s five and it’s absolutely not his fault that my skin is so sensitive that touch is painful to me. I’m sure there’s probably a more graceful way to tell him that I just spent every last bit of energy I had making a couple of eggs that may or may not stay down and no, I don’t have the energy to deal with him wanting a new packet of salami and cheese when he hasn’t finished the cheese from the last one. He spent most of the day hanging out with his dad and his oldest sibling. My daughter is fortunately well cared for. We are protected from each other, but I wonder often what she thinks of our new reality, where she always has someone, but it’s almost never her mother because I can’t risk her feet or her teeth, because I can’t risk my temper or my lack of coping. Because I can no longer lift her, this child that I carried on my back for three straight years because she hadn’t learned to walk yet. I only stopped because I ended up with a clot and couldn’t lift anything.

Writing has been hard this week, because when I write I draw on my experience, and right now it hurts to remember that once, I was a dancer, once I was a competitive swimmer, once I stood in front of people trying to ignore a bigot and roused them to speak out against him.

When I write I remember the things I could do and the places I went. I did so much. And it feels like that is over. The last convention I went to hurt. I had a scooter, and pillows, and a hotel room to retreat to, and it hurt so, so bad that I now associate conventions, which were fun, once, with blinding pain.

The last one I went to was just before I was diagnosed. My joints were on fire. I thought I would need a wheelchair forever afterwards.

I’m afraid to go back to the doctor and tell them how much the methotrexate is hurting me because the alternatives are thousands of dollars per month.

We can afford it, I just hate being that much more of a burden. That money was supposed to let us enjoy my husband’s retirement. But the idea of going on a cruise? I don’t see it happening and I don’t know how to break it to my husband that it might not be possible.

I keep feeling like there are things I should be doing, like I should be trying, TRYING to exercise, like I should be trying to do something about my weight even though I know that trying to do something about my weight is not actually going to result in making healthier choices. There are barely any foods I can eat. No foods that are unambiguously healthy for me. The last thing I need to do right now is tell myself I can’t eat the few foods that don’t actively make me sick.

But today I tried to push through and I feel like I’m going to lose the entire week to it.

I have no extra resources for social niceties. I’m completely social-scripting my responses to comments on my fic (please keep making comments, it matter so much, just understand if my responses are short.) I’m making huge social errors because I’m misreading things because the only way I social is by applying cognitive effort and I just don’t have it right now.

I hear about people living and doing relatively normal things with RA. But my RA was not correctly diagnosed in a timely fashion. In retrospect, I think it started in 2014, but they didn’t have the right test in common usage so they shrugged and attributed my symptoms to “I don’t know some sort of inflammatory process probably related to EDS” and so by the time I was diagnosed, 29 joints were on fire and the antibody levels were so high they could not be accurately measured.

A lot of people with RA just have RA.

I have RA, EDS, Hashimotos, Sjogren’s, fibro, sleep apnea, allergies, IBS, and Factor V Leiden. I’m probably autistic, definitely neuroatypical, with massive sensory issues and a brain that does amazing things in a lot of areas and is utterly inept at the things people expect to be easy. If I write people well it’s because I’ve been studying human beings like an anthropologist since I was three years old. (I gave my mother a sheet of paper on which I’d drawn a wide variety of facial expressions because I was trying to understand facial expressions.)

Someone asked me once, “Have you considered that your problems might be psychological?” I laughed in his face. The idea that I could, via mental illness, magically clot the blood in my veins or sabotage my own thyroid? I mean, I absolutely have anxiety and intermittent depression issues, but ffs, those things don’t make my salivary glands swell to the size of golf balls. I get tired because my body is attacking myself, and exercise makes that process worse because it fucks with my immune system which is pretty good at fucking its own self up.

Someone asked me once why I pursued so many diagnoses. The answer was, “Maybe if they figure out the right one, they can fix something.” It’s not because I *like* collecting diagnoses. I miss being able to eat normally. I miss being strong and physically fit. I used to swim 10 hours per week. I used to ride horses. I used to go camping and loved it. I used to be able to build things with my hands.

I have to remind myself not to do those things.

I have to, because pretending I’m not sick makes me sicker.

Every shot I take seems to push me into a flare. Not a huge flare, just a few joints reminding me that this isn’t over. That this will never be over.

I got through the twice-a-day-Lovenox routine because I knew it was finite and i knew there would be a baby I wanted very much at the end of it.

I will be on methotrexate or something like it for the rest of my life.

It feels like poison. The sneaky poison that you think isn’t poison until your lips go numb even though you didn’t drink it. And then I sleep and think, “Well, at least I can sleep.”

And then I wake up and my whole body hurts, and the exhaustion pulls at me so hard, and I’m supposed to eat something so that I can take the small dose of steroids I’m still on, and I don’t want to eat because my stomach is on a boat.

Saturdays might as well not exist. Sundays aren’t much better. By Monday I can drag myself to physical therapy. By Tuesday I can drag myself to the grocery store. By Thursday I start to think, “I really should exercise” and on Friday I fight dread about the coming shot.

This morning my husband said, “I blame Trump.”

And I said, “You might as well. Stress increases inflammation, and most of my stress in the last six months has started with That Man.”

It is no mystery to me that so many people died last year.

The mystery is how we keep going when it’s hard.

“How are you doing?” asks a cashier. They all ask this. Everyone, locally. It’s a reflex thing.

And my brain won’t let me give the flip lie of an answer. I can’t say I’m fine. I’m not fine.

“I’m doing,” I echo. (Right now this feels like a lie, too.)

Sometimes they say, “How are you today?”

And I just say, “I’m here.”

Sometimes what doesn’t kill us just doesn’t kill us (yet).

I’m not stronger, I’m just not dead.

#Mine #rage against the chemo #I'm not fine #medical reality #rheumatoid arthritis #writing (or not)#needles #I cried at the best buy counter today

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fuckyeahmarxismleninism · 7 years

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URGENT: Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Treatment Expected, But Not Yet Delivered

Delayed Hep C Treatment Leads to Death

On March 31, 2017, Mumia Abu-Jamal received a cruel mix of bad and good news from a prison doctor. The doctor shared the results of his recent lab test, which showed clear signs of cirrhosis, an irreversible scarring of the liver caused by his untreated Hep C. The doctor also informed Mumia that he would be treated with the Hep C cure within a week.

The impending victory was bittersweet. Mumia shared his feelings with those he called that morning. His rare expression of emotion was also captured in an interview that evening in which he stated: “My first reaction was really shock, anger, disbelief. If I had been treated in 2015, if I had been treated in 2012 when they say they first diagnosed it, I wouldn’t be this far advanced.…For a lot of guys and a lot of gals inside the Pennsylvania prisons, I think it is a step forward and a great day, but I assure you I don’t feel that way right now.”

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections’ apparent concession to treat Mumia with the Hep C cure was achieved through an agonizing two-year battle waged in the streets and through two court suits. However, Mumia has not yet been treated and will not be without our vigilance and continued protests.

If he is treated immediately, Mumia can expect to return to good health; but patients who have developed cirrhosis are more susceptible to developing liver cancer in the future and have to be monitored for the rest of their lives.

In the face of Mumia’s battle for humane medical treatment, the PA DOC had adopted a retaliatory posture and accelerated its efforts to silence and kill Mumia by delaying treatment. Because of the failure to treat his Hep C, over the last two years, Mumia fell into a diabetic coma, experienced severe brain swelling, and suffered a painful skin condition that disfigured his body. In the last year, he and others in the prison have been forced to bathe in and drink water that is often visibly contaminated—“black and turbid,” as Mumia put it.

Many of Mumia’s supporters around the world believed that Mumia received treatment back in early January 2017 because a federal judge ordered the DOC to provide it. But a stubborn and stonewalling PA DOC refused to comply with the ruling. The judge ordered Mumia’s immediate treatment citing the unconstitutionality of the PA DOC’s Hep C treatment protocol. The judge denounced the DOC, whose protocol “deliberately delays” treatment with the standard Hep C cure until the prisoner experiences bleeding of the throat, among other deadly symptoms. The decision cited eight amendment rights violations prohibiting cruel and usual punishment.

The ongoing foot dragging by the PA DOC was confirmed this week. On the same day that the prison doctor delivered the news to Mumia, PA DOC attorneys filed a scandalous motion in court. They asked the judge to dismiss Mumia’s legal health suit on the basis that the DOC had decided to treat Mumia under the guidelines of pre-existing HEP C treatment protocol —the same protocol that the judge previously declared “unconstitutional.”

These arguments demonstrate the DOC’s attempt to undermine the legal implications of Mumia’s legal suit and the DOC’s own misconduct. When Mumia is finally administered the cure, his treatment will establish precedent for the treatment of thousands of PA prisoners with Hep C, as well as people on the outside who can't afford the medication. Mumia’s battle has exposed the deadly crisis of medical care in the prisons and the barbarism of the U.S. for-profit health care system that charges 90K for the Hep C cure.

As history shows, a judge’s ruling does not ensure its implementation, especially when it challenges ruling interests. For this reason, we are asking you to take action and demand immediate Hep C treatment for Mumia, for the more than 700,000 prisoners with Hep C across the country and the millions suffering with the untreated, deadly disease outside the prison walls in our neighborhoods.

This moment has also created an opportunity to uphold Mumia’s innocence and fight for his freedom. On Monday, April 24, 2017, the day of Mumia’s birthday, his attorneys will challenge his conviction in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. We are calling on you to join us at the courthouse and in the streets.

On April 24, his conviction attorneys, Judith Ritter and Christina Swarns (NAACP Legal Defense Fund), will take advantage of the recent Supreme Court ruling in Williams v. Commonwealth to show how judicial and prosecutorial bias in all of Mumia’s state appeals have kept him behind bars. This important Supreme Court ruling determined that a judge cannot fairly adjudicate an appeal of a case for which he/she has previously had a personal role in a significant prosecutorial decision.

In Mumia’s case, Judge Ronald Castile, the same judge under scrutiny in Williams v. Commonwealth, also was the elected Philadelphia District Attorney responsible for the arguments made to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1988 to uphold Mumia’s trial conviction and death sentence. Castille had also been a high-level assistant DA during Mumia’s trial. After he was elected to the PA Supreme Court in 1994, he was involved in deliberating and denying all of Mumia’s state appeals against the decisions of “hanging judge” Albert Sabo and Pamela Dembe who upheld Mumia’s death sentence and denied him a new trial during multiple appeals between 1998-2007. These judges denied a new trial despite Mumia’s innocence, that evidence of his guilt was manufactured by the police and prosecution and that he had been denied virtually every due process right and protection owed under the U.S. constitution.

During the appellate filing, Mumia’s attorneys asked Judge Castille to recuse himself because of this bias, citing also the judge’s close relationship with the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), which lobbied for Mumia’s conviction. The FOP funded Castille’s bid for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and honored him as “Man of the Year.” In response to Mumia’s attorneys, Justice Castille responded stridently that he would not step aside, noting that he should not be singled out because five of the seven judges of that Pennsylvania Supreme Court were also supported by the FOP. It is no surprise that the court did not find one single error in the original court proceedings and thus upheld his death sentence and denied Mumia the right to a new trial.

We demand the immediate release of Mumia!

We are calling on you to do two things

Call the DOC to demand immediate treatment for Mumia and all PA prisoners with Hep C --- PA DOC Secretary John Wetzel, (717) 728-2573, (Email) [email protected] -- (Twitter) @johnewetzel * @CorrectionsPA

Join us in Philadelphia on Monday, April 24, 2017 at 8:30AM, at the the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas to assert Mumia’s innocence and call for his immediate release. Center for Criminal Justice, Courtroom 1101, 1303 Filbert Street, Philadelphia, PA

Signers in solidarity,

International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal

MOVE

Campaign to Bring Mumia Home

Abolitionist Law Center

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC)

Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal

Committee to Save Mumia Abu-Jamal

Workers World Party

Philly REAL Justice

Prison Radio

Sankofa Community Empowerment

Millions for Mumia/International Action Center

Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal/Northern California

Le Collectif Français "Libérons Mumia”

German Network Against the Death Penalty and to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal

Amig@s de Mumia de México

Saint-Denis Free Mumia Committee

#Mumia Abu-Jamal #political prisoners #healthcare #hep c #FreeMumia

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blackkudos · 7 years

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Joe Frazier

Joseph William "Joe" Frazier (January 12, 1944 – November 7, 2011), nicknamed "Smokin' Joe", was an American professional boxer who competed from 1965 to 1981. He reigned as the undisputed heavyweight champion from 1970 to 1973, and as an amateur won a gold medal at the 1964 Summer Olympics. Frazier was known for his sheer strength, durability, formidable punching power, and all-out relentless attack.

Frazier emerged as the top contender in the late 1960s, defeating opponents that included Jerry Quarry, Oscar Bonavena, Buster Mathis, Eddie Machen, Doug Jones, George Chuvalo and Jimmy Ellis en route to becoming undisputed heavyweight champion in 1970, and followed up by defeating Muhammad Ali by unanimous decision in the highly anticipated "Fight of the Century" in 1971. Two years later Frazier lost his title when he was defeated by George Foreman. He fought on, beating Joe Bugner, losing a rematch to Ali and beating Quarry and Ellis again.

Frazier's last world title challenge came in 1975, but he was beaten by Ali in their brutal rubbermatch. He retired in 1976 following a second loss to Foreman. He made a comeback in 1981, fighting just once, before retiring. The International Boxing Research Organization (IBRO) rates Frazier among the ten greatest heavyweights of all time. In 1999, The Ring magazine ranked him the 8th greatest heavyweight. He is an inductee of both the International Boxing Hall of Fame and the World Boxing Hall of Fame.

Frazier's style was often compared to that of Henry Armstrong and occasionally Rocky Marciano, dependent on bobbing, weaving and relentless pressure to wear down his opponents. His best known punch was a powerful left hook, which accounted for most of his knockouts. In his career he lost to only two fighters, both former Olympic and world heavyweight champions: twice to Muhammad Ali, and twice to George Foreman.

After retiring, Frazier made cameo appearances in several Hollywood movies, and two episodes of The Simpsons. His son Marvis became a boxer—trained by Frazier himself—but was unable to match his father's success. His daughter Jackie Frazier-Lyde also boxed professionally. Frazier continued to train fighters in his gym in Philadelphia. His later years saw periodic insults and bitter feelings towards Ali, interspersed with brief reconciliations.

Frazier was diagnosed with liver cancer in late September 2011 and admitted to hospice care. He died of complications from the disease on November 7, 2011.

Early life

Joe Frazier was the 12th child born to Dolly Alston-Frazier and Rubin in Beaufort, South Carolina. He was raised in a rural community of Beaufort called Laurel Bay. Frazier said he was always close to his father, who carried him when he was a toddler "over the 10 acres of farmland" the Fraziers worked as sharecroppers "to the still where he made his bootleg corn liquor, and into town on Saturdays to buy the necessities that a family of 10 needed." Young Frazier was affectionately called "Billie Boy."

Rubin Frazier had his left hand burned and part of his forearm amputated in a tractor accident the year his son was born. Rubin Frazier and his wife Dolly had been in their car when Arthur Smith, who was drunk, passed by and made a move for Dolly but was rebuffed. Stefan Gallucci, a local barkeep, recounted the experience. When the Fraziers drove away Smith fired at them several times, hitting Dolly in the foot and Rubin several times in his arm. Smith was convicted and sent to prison, but did not stay long. Dolly Frazier said, "If you were a good workman, the white man took you out of jail and kept you busy on the farm."

Frazier's parents worked their farm with two mules, named Buck and Jenny. The farmland was what country people called "white dirt, which is another way of saying it isn't worth a damn." They could not grow peas or corn on it, only cotton and watermelons.

In the early 1950s, Frazier's father bought a black and white television. The family and others nearby came to watch boxing matches on it. Frazier's mother sold drinks for a quarter as they watched boxers like Sugar Ray Robinson, Rocky Marciano, Willie Pep and Rocky Graziano. One night Frazier's Uncle Israel noticed his stocky build. "That boy there...that boy is gonna be another Joe Louis" he remarked. The words made an impression on Joe. His classmates at school would give him a sandwich or a quarter to walk with them at final bell so that bullies would not bother them. Frazier said, "Any 'scamboogah' (a disrespectful, low-down and foul person) who got in my face would soon regret it; Billie Boy could kick anybody's ass." The day after his Uncle's comment, Frazier filled old burlap sack with rags, corncobs, a brick, and Spanish moss. He hung the makeshift heavybag from an oak tree in the backyard. "For the next 6, 7 years, damn near every day I'd hit that heavybag for an hour at a time. I'd wrap my hands with a necktie of my Daddy's, or a stocking of my Momma's or sister's, and get to it" Joe remarked.

Not long after Frazier started working, his left arm was seriously injured while he was running from the family's 300 pound hog. One day Frazier poked the hog with a stick and ran away. The gate to the pigpen was open, however; and the hog chased him. Frazier fell and hit his left arm on a brick. His arm was torn badly; but as the family could not afford a doctor, the arm had to heal on its own. Joe was never able to keep it fully straight again.

By the time Frazier was 15 years old, he was working on a farm for a family named Bellamy. They were both white men: Mac, who was the younger of the two and more easy going, and Jim, who was a little rougher and somewhat backward. One day a little black boy of about 12 years old accidently damaged one of the Bellamys' tractors. Jim Bellamy became so enraged he took off his belt and whipped the boy with his belt right there in the field. Joe saw the event and went back to the packing house on the farm and told his black friends what he had seen. It wasn't long before Jim Bellamy saw Joe and asked him why he told what he had witnessed. Joe then told Bellamy he didn't know what he was talking about, but Bellamy didn't believe Joe and told Joe to get off the farm before he took off his belt again. Joe told him he better keep his pants up because he wasn't going to use his belt on him. Jim then analyzed Joe for a bit and eventually said "Go on, get the hell outta here." Joe knew from that moment it was time for him to leave Beaufort; he could only see hard times and low-rent for himself. Even his Momma could see it. She told Joe "Son, if you can't get along with the white folks, then leave home because I don't want anything to happen to you."

The train fare from Beaufort to the cities up North was costly, and the closest bus-stop was in Charleston, 75 miles (121 km) away. Luckily by 1958, the bus (The Dog, as called by locals in Beaufort) had finally made Beaufort a stop on its South Carolina route. Joe had a brother, Tommy, in New York. He was told he could stay with Tommy and his family. Joe had to save up a bit before he could make the bus trip to New York and still have some money in his pocket, and so first he went to work at the local Coca-Cola plant. Joe remarked that the white guy would drive the truck and he would do the real work, stacking and unloading the crates. Joe stayed with Coca-Cola until the government began building houses for the Marines stationed at Parris Island; at which time he was hired on a work crew.

Nine months eventually passed since he got the boot from the Bellamy farm. One day, with no fanfare, no tearful goodbyes, Joe packed quickly and got the first bus heading northward. He finally settled in Philadelphia, "I climbed on the Dog's back and rode through the night" Joe remarked. "It was 1959, I was 15 years old and I was on my own."

Amateur career

During Frazier's amateur career, he won Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championships in 1962, 1963 and 1964. His only loss in three years as an amateur was to Buster Mathis. Mathis would prove to be Joe's biggest obstacle to making the 1964 U.S. Olympic Boxing team. They met in the final of the U.S. Olympic Trial at the New York World's Fair in the summer of 1964. Their fight was scheduled for three rounds and they fought with 10 oz gloves and with headgear, even though the boxers who made it to Tokyo would wear no headgear and would wear 8 oz gloves. Joe was eager to get back at Mathis for his only amateur loss and KO'd two opponents to get to the finals. But once again, when the dust settled, the judges had called it for Mathis, undeservedly Joe thought. "All that fat boy had done was run like a thief- hit me with a peck and backpedal like crazy." Joe would remark.

Mathis had worn his trunks very high, so that when Joe hit Mathis with legitimate body shots the referee took a dim view of them. In the second round, the referee had gone so far as to penalize Joe two points for hitting below the belt. "In a three-round bout a man can't afford a points deduction like that," Joe would say. Joe then returned to Philadelphia feeling as low as he'd ever been and was even thinking of giving up boxing. Duke Dugent and his trainer Yank Durham were able to talk Joe out of his doldrums and even suggested Joe make the trip to Tokyo as an alternate, in case something happened to Mathis. Joe agreed and while there, he was a workhorse, sparring with any of the Olympic boxers who wanted some action. "Middleweight, light heavyweight, it didn't matter to me, I got in there and boxed all comers" Joe would say. In contrast, Mathis was slacking off. In the morning, when the Olympic team would do their roadwork, Mathis would run a mile, then start walking saying "Go ahead, big Joe. I'll catch up." His amateur record was 38–2.

1964 Olympics

In 1964 heavyweight representative Buster Mathis qualified but was injured so Frazier was sent as a replacement. At the Heavyweight boxing event, Frazier knocked out George Oywello of Uganda in the first round, then knocked out Athol McQueen of Australia 40 seconds into the third round. He was then into the semi-final, as the only American boxer left, facing the 6 foot 2, 214 lb. Vadim Yemelyanov of the Soviet Union.

"My left hook was a heat seeking missile, careening off his face and body time and again. Twice in the second round I knocked him to the canvas. But as I pounded away, I felt a jolt of pain shoot through my left arm. Oh damn, the thumb." Joe would say. Joe knew immediately the thumb of his left hand was damaged, though he wasn't sure as to the extent. "In the midst of the fight, with your adrenaline pumping, it's hard to gauge such things. My mind was on more important matters. Like how I was going to deal with Yemelyanov for the rest of the fight." The match ended when the Soviet's handlers threw in the towel at 1:49 in the second round, and the referee raised Joe's injured hand in victory.

Now that Joe was into the final, he didn't mention his broken thumb to anyone. He went back to his room and soaked his thumb in hot water and Epsom salts. "Pain or not, Joe Frazier of Beaufort, South Carolina, was going for gold." Joe proclaimed. Joe would fight a 30-year-old German mechanic named Hans Huber, who failed to make it on the German Olympic wrestling team. By now Joe was used to fighting bigger guys, but he was not used to doing it with a damaged left hand. When the opening bell sounded on fight night, Joe came out and started swinging punches, he threw his right hand more than usual that night. Every so often he'd used his left hook, but nothing landed with the kind of impact he managed in previous bouts. Under Olympic rules, 5 judges judge a bout, and that night three voted for Joe.

Professional career

After Frazier won the USA's only 1964 Olympic boxing gold medal, his trainer Yancey "Yank" Durham helped put together Cloverlay, a group of local businessmen (including a young Larry Merchant) who invested in Frazier's professional career and allowed him to train full-time. Durham was Frazier's chief trainer and manager until Durham's death in August 1973.

Frazier turned professional in 1965, defeating Woody Goss by a technical knockout in the first round. He won three more fights that year, all by knockout, none going past the third round. Later that year, he was in a training accident, where he suffered an injury which left him legally blind in his left eye. During pre-fight physicals, after reading the eye chart with his right eye, when prompted to cover his other eye, Frazier switched hands, but covered his left eye for a second time, and state athletic commission physicians seemed to not notice or act.

Joe's second contest was of interest in that he was decked in round 1 by Mike Bruce. Frazier took an "8" count by referee Bob Polis but rallied for a TKO over Bruce in round 3.

In 1966, as Frazier's career was taking off, Durham contacted Los Angeles trainer Eddie Futch. The two men had never met, but Durham had heard of Futch through the latter's reputation as one of the most respected trainers in boxing. Frazier was sent to Los Angeles to train, before Futch agreed to join Durham as an assistant trainer. With Futch's assistance, Durham arranged three fights in Los Angeles against journeyman Al Jones, veteran contender Eddie Machen and George "Scrap Iron" Johnson. Frazier knocked out Jones and Machen, but surprisingly went 10 rounds with journeyman Johnson to win a unanimous decision. Johnson had apparently bet all his purse that he'd survive to the final bell, noted Ring Magazine, and somehow he achieved it. But Johnson was known in the trade as "impossibly durable".

After the Johnson match, Futch became a full-fledged member of the Frazier camp as an assistant trainer and strategist, who advised Durham on matchmaking. It was Futch who suggested that Frazier boycott the 1967 WBA Heavyweight Elimination Tournament to find a successor to Muhammad Ali after the Heavyweight Champion was stripped of his title for refusing to be inducted into the military, although Frazier was the top-ranked contender at the time.

Futch proved invaluable to Frazier as an assistant trainer, helping modify his style. Under his tutelage, Frazier adopted the bob-and-weave defensive style, making him more difficult for taller opponents to punch, while giving Frazier more power with his own punches. While Futch remained based in Los Angeles, where he worked as a supervisor with the U.S. Postal Service, he was flown to Philadelphia to work with Frazier during the final preparations for all of his fights.

After Durham died of a stroke on August 30, 1973, Futch was asked to succeed him as Frazier's head trainer and manager—at the same time he was training heavyweight contender Ken Norton. Norton lost a rematch against Ali less than two weeks after Durham's death. At that point, Norton's managers, Robert Biron and Aaron Rivkind, demanded that Futch choose between training Frazier and Norton, with Futch choosing Frazier.

Mid to late 1960s

Now in his second year, in September 1966 and somewhat green, Frazier won a close decision over rugged contender Oscar Bonavena, despite Bonavena flooring him twice in the second round. A third knockdown in that round would have ended the fight under the three knockdown rule. Frazier rallied and won a decision after 12 rounds. The Machen win followed this contest.

In 1967 Frazier stormed ahead winning all six of his fights, including a sixth-round knockout of Doug Jones and a brutal fourth round (TKO) of Canadian George Chuvalo. No boxer had ever stopped Chuvalo before, although Frazier, despite the stoppage, was unable to floor Chuvalo, who would never be dropped in his entire career despite him fighting countless top names.

By February 1967 Joe had scored 14 wins and his star was beginning to rise. This culminated with his first appearance on the cover of Ring Magazine. In this month he met Ali, who hadn't yet been stripped of his title. Ali said Joe would never stand a chance of "whipping" him, not even in his wildest dreams. Later that year, Muhammad Ali was stripped of his world heavyweight title due to his refusal to be inducted into the military during the Vietnam War.

To fill the vacancy, the New York State Athletic Commission held a bout between Frazier and Buster Mathis, both undefeated going into the match, with the winner to be recognized as "World Champion" by the state of New York. Although the fight was not recognized as a World Championship bout by some, Frazier won by a knockout in the 11th round and staked a claim to the Heavyweight Championship. He then defended his claim by beating hard hitting prospect Manuel Ramos of Mexico in two rounds.

He closed 1968 by again beating Oscar Bonavena via a 15-round decision in a hard-fought rematch. Bonavena fought somewhat defensively, allowing himself to be often bulled to the ropes, which let Frazier build a wide points margin. Ring Magazine showed Bonavena afterwards with a gruesomely bruised face. It had been a punishing match.

1969 saw Frazier defend his NYSAC title in Texas, beating Dave Zyglewicz, who'd only lost once in 29 fights, by a first-round knockout. Then he beat Jerry Quarry in a 7th round stoppage. The competitive, exciting match with Quarry was named 1969 Ring Magazinefight of the year. Frazier showed he could do a lot more than just slug. He'd used his newly honed defensive skills to slip, bob and weave a barrage of Quarry punches despite Quarry's reputation as an excellent counter punching heavyweight.

Wins World Championship – Ellis

On February 16, 1970, Frazier faced WBA Champion Jimmy Ellis at Madison Square Garden. Ellis had outpointed Jerry Quarry in the final bout of the WBA elimination tournament for Ali's vacated belt. Frazier had himself declined to participate with the WBA tournament to protest their decision to strip Ali. Ellis held an impressive win over Oscar Bonavena among others. Beforehand, Ali had announced his retirement and relinquished the Heavyweight title, allowing Ellis and Frazier to fight for the undisputed title. Frazier won by a TKO when Ellis's trainer Angelo Dundee would not let him come out for the 5th round following two 4th round knockdowns (the first knockdowns of Ellis's career). Frazier's decisive win over Ellis was a frightening display of power and tenacity.

In his first title defense, Frazier traveled to Detroit to fight World Light Heavyweight Champion Bob Foster, who would go on to set a record for the number of title defenses in the light-heavyweight division. Frazier (26–0) retained his title by twice flooring the hard punching Foster in the second round. The second knock down came on a devastating left hook and Foster could not beat the count. Then came what was hyped as the "Fight Of The Century," his first fight with Muhammad Ali, who had launched a comeback in 1970 after a three-year suspension from boxing. This would be the first meeting of two undefeated heavyweight champions (and last until Mike Tyson faced Michael Spinks in 1988), since Ali (31–0) had not lost his title in the ring, but rather been stripped because of his refusal to be conscripted into the Armed Forces, some considered him to be the true champion. This fight was to crown the one, true heavyweight champion.

Fight of the Century – first fight versus Ali

On March 8, 1971, at Madison Square Garden, Frazier and Ali met in the first of their three bouts which was called the "Fight of the Century" in pre-bout publicity and by the press. With an international television audience and an in-house audience that included luminaries Frank Sinatra (as a photographer for Life magazine to get a ringside seat), comedian Woody Allen, singer Diana Ross and actors Dustin Hoffman and Burt Lancaster (who served as "color commentator" with fight announcer Don Dunphy), the two undefeated heavyweights met in a media-frenzied atmosphere reminiscent of Joe Louis' youth.

Several factors came together for Frazier in this fight. He was 27 years old and at his boxing peak physically and mentally, Ali, 29, was coming back from a three-year absence but had kept active. He had had two good wins, including a bruising battle with Oscar Bonavena, whom Ali had defeated by a TKO in 15 rounds. Frazier worked on strategy with coach Eddie Futch. They noted Ali's tendency to throw a right-hand uppercut from a straight standing position after dropping the hand in preparation to throw it with force. Futch instructed Frazier to watch Ali's right hand and, at the moment Ali dropped it, to throw a left hook at the spot where they knew Ali's face would be a second later. Frazier staggered Ali in the 11th round and knocked down Ali in the 15th in this way.

In a brutal and competitive contest, Frazier lost the first two rounds but was able to withstand Ali's combinations. Frazier was known to improve in middle rounds, and this was the case with Ali. Frazier came on strong after round three, landing hard shots to the body and powerful left hooks to the head.

Ultimately, Frazier won a 15-round, unanimous decision (9–6, 11–4, and 9–6). Ali was taken to hospital immediately after the fight to check that his severely swollen right side jaw (which was apparent in post-fight interviews) wasn't actually broken. Frazier also spent time in hospital during the ensuing month, the exertions of the fight having been exacerbated by hypertension and a kidney infection.

Later in the year he fought a 3-round exhibition against hard hitting veteran contender Cleveland Williams.

In 1972, Frazier successfully defended the title twice, beating Terry Daniels and Ron Stander, both by knockout, in the fourth and fifth rounds respectively. Daniels had earlier drawn with Jerry Quarry and Stander had knocked out Earnie Shavers.

Loses title to George Foreman

Frazier lost his undefeated record of 29–0 and his world championship, at the hands of the unbeaten George Foreman on January 22, 1973, in Kingston, Jamaica. Despite Frazier being the overall favorite, Foreman towered 10 cm (4 inches) over the more compact champion and dominated from the start. Two minutes into the first round, Foreman knocked Frazier down for the first time. After he was knocked down a sixth time in the second round referee Arthur Mercante, Sr. stopped the contest.

Frazier won his next fight, a 12-round decision over Joe Bugner, in London to begin his quest to regain the title.

Mid 1970s – second fight against Ali

Frazier's second fight against Ali took place on January 28, 1974, in New York City. In contrast to their previous meeting, the bout was a non-title fight, with Ali winning a 12-round unanimous decision (4–7, 5–7, and 5–6). The fight was notable for the amount of clinching.

Five months later, Frazier again battled Jerry Quarry in Madison Square Garden, with a strong left hook to the ribs by Frazier ending the fight in the fifth round.

In March 1975, Frazier fought a rematch with Jimmy Ellis in Melbourne, Australia, knocking him out in nine rounds. The win again established Frazier as the number one heavyweight challenger for the title, which Ali had won from George Foreman in the famous "Rumble in the Jungle" five months earlier.

Thrilla In Manila – third Ali fight

Ali and Frazier met for the third and final time in Quezon City (a district within the metropolitan area of Manila), the Philippines, on October 1, 1975: the "Thrilla in Manila". Prior to the fight, Ali took opportunities to mock Frazier by calling him a '"gorilla", and generally trying to irritate him.

The fight was a punishing display on both sides under oppressively hot conditions. During the fight, Ali said to Frazier, "They said you were through, Joe." Frazier said, "They lied." After 14 grueling rounds, Futch stopped the fight with Frazier having a closed left eye, an almost-closed right eye and a cut. Ali later said that it was the "closest thing to dying that I know of.". In 1977, Ali told interviewer Reg Gutteridge that he felt this third Frazier fight was his best performance. When Gutteridge suggested his win over Cleveland Williams, Ali said, "No, Frazier's much tougher and rougher than Cleveland Williams".

Foreman again

In 1976, Frazier (32–3) fought George Foreman for a second time. With a shaved head for a new image Frazier fought well enough, somewhat more restrained than usual, avoiding walking onto the big shots which he had done in their first match. However, Foreman awaited his moment and then lobbed in a tremendous left hook that lifted Frazier off his feet. After a second knock down it was stopped in the fifth. Shortly after the fight, Frazier announced his retirement.

Frazier made a cameo appearance in the movie Rocky later in 1976 and dedicated himself to training local boxers in Philadelphia, where he grew up, including some of his own children. He also helped train Duane Bobick.

Music career

During the late 1970s, Frazier created a soul-funk group called "Joe Frazier and the Knockouts," being mentioned in Billboard and recording a number of singles. Joe toured widely all over the USA and Europe including Ireland where among other places he performed in Donegal, Ireland and Athy Co Kildare, Ireland with his band. Joe Frazier and the Knockouts were featured singing in a 1978 Miller beer commercial.

1980s comeback and career as trainer

In 1981, Frazier attempted a comeback. He drew over 10 rounds with hulking Floyd "Jumbo" Cummings in Chicago, Illinois. It was a bruising battle with mixed reviews. He then retired for good.

After that, Frazier involved himself in various endeavors. Among his sons who turned to boxing as a career, he helped train Marvis Frazier, a challenger for Larry Holmes's world heavyweight title and trained his daughter, Jackie Frazier-Lyde, whose most notable fight to date was a close points loss against Laila Ali, the daughter of his rival.

Frazier's overall record was 32 wins, 4 losses and 1 draw, with 27 wins by knockout. He won 73 percent of his fights by knockout, compared to 60 percent for Ali and 84 percent for Foreman. He was a member of the International Boxing Hall Of Fame.

In 1984, Frazier was the special referee for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship match between Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes at Starrcade '84, awarding the match to Flair due to Rhodes' excessive bleeding.

In 1986, Frazier appeared as the "corner man" for Mr. T against Roddy Piper at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum as part of WrestleMania 2. In 1989, Frazier joined Ali, Foreman, Norton and Holmes for the tribute special Champions Forever.

Media appearances

Frazier appeared as himself in an episode of The Simpsons ("Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?") in 1992, in which he was supposed to have been beaten up by Barney Gumble in Moe's Tavern. Frazier's son objected and Frazier was instead shown beating up Gumble and putting him in a trash can. Frazier appeared in another episode of The Simpsons ("Homer's Paternity Coot") in 2006. He appeared on-screen in the 8th series of The Celebrity Apprentice (USA) television show as a guest-attendee at the Silent Auction event held for the season finale (won by Joan Rivers). Frazier appeared as himself in the Academy Award-winning 1976 movie, Rocky. Since the debut of the Fight Night series of games, Frazier appeared in Fight Night 2004, Fight Night Round 2, Fight Night Round 3, Fight Night Round 4 and Fight Night Champion, games made by EA Sports.

Books

Frazier released his autobiography in March 1996, entitled Smokin' Joe: The Autobiography of a Heavyweight Champion of the World, Smokin' Joe Frazier. Frazier promoted the book with a memorable appearance on The Howard Stern Show on April 19, 1996.

He also wrote Box like the Pros, "a complete introduction to the sport, including the game's history, rules of the ring, how fights are scored, how to spar, the basics of defence and offence, the fighter's workout, a directory of boxing gyms, and much more. Box Like the Pros is an instruction manual, a historical reference tool and an insider's guide to the world's most controversial sport."

Financial issues and legal battles

According to an article from The New York Times, "over the years, Frazier has lost a fortune through a combination of his own generosity and naïveté, his carousing, and failed business opportunities. The other headliners from his fighting days—Ali, George Foreman, and Larry Holmes—are millionaires." Asked about his situation, Frazier became playfully defensive, but would not reveal his financial status. "Are you asking me how much money I have?" he said. "I got plenty of money. I got a stack of $100 bills rolled up over there in the back of the room." Frazier blamed himself, partly, for not effectively promoting his own image. In a 2006 HBO documentary on the fight in Manila, Frazier was interviewed living in a one-room apartment on the second floor of his gym.

His daughter Jackie Frazier-Lyde is a lawyer and worked on her father's behalf in pursuit of money they claimed he was owed in a Pennsylvania land deal. In 1973, Frazier purchased 140 acres in Bucks County, Pennsylvania for $843,000. Five years later, a developer agreed to buy the farmland for $1.8 million. Frazier received annual payments from a trust that bought the land with money he had earned in the ring. However, when the trust went bankrupt, the payments ceased.

Frazier sued his business partners, insisting his signature had been forged on documents and he had no knowledge of the sale. In the ensuing years, the 140 acres was subdivided and turned into a residential community. The land is now worth an estimated $100 million.

Relationship with Muhammad Ali

Frazier and Ali were friends. During Ali's enforced three-year lay-off from boxing for refusing to be drafted into the US Army, Frazier lent him money, testified before Congress and petitioned U.S. President Richard Nixon to have Ali's right to box reinstated. Frazier supported Ali's right not to serve in the army, saying "If Baptists weren't allowed to fight, I wouldn't fight either."

However, in the build-up to their first fight, The Fight of the Century, Ali turned it into a "cultural and political referendum", painting himself as a revolutionary and civil rights champion and Frazier as the white man's hope, an "Uncle Tom" and a pawn of the white establishment. Ali successfully turned many black Americans against Frazier. Bryant Gumbel joined the pro-Ali, anti-Frazier bandwagon by writing a major magazine article that asked "Is Joe Frazier a white champion with black skin?" Frazier thought this was "a cynical attempt by Clay to make me feel isolated from my own people. He thought that would weaken me when it came time to face him in that ring. Well, he was wrong. It didn't weaken me, it awakened me to what a cheap-shot son of a bitch he was." He noted the hypocrisy of Ali calling him an Uncle Tom when his [Ali's] trainer (Angelo Dundee) was white.

As a result of Ali's campaign, Frazier's children were bullied at school and his family were given police protection after receiving death threats. Ali declared that if Frazier won he would crawl across the ring and admit that Frazier was the greatest. After Frazier won by a unanimous decision, he called upon Ali to fulfill his promise and crawl across the ring, but he didn't. Ali called it a "white man's decision" and insisted that he won.

During a televised joint interview prior to their second bout in 1974, Ali continued to insult Frazier, who took exception to Ali calling him "ignorant" and challenged him to a fight, which resulted in the two of them brawling on the studio floor. Ali went on to win the 12 round non-title affair by a decision. Ali took things further in the build-up to their last fight, The Thrilla in Manila, and called Frazier "the other type of negro" and "ugly", "dumb" and a "gorilla" At one point he sparred with a man in a gorilla suit and pounded on a rubber gorilla doll, saying "This is Joe Frazier's conscience... I keep it everywhere I go. This is the way he looks when you hit him." According to the fight's promoter Don King, this enraged Frazier, who took it as a "character assassination" and "personal invective". One night before the fight, Ali waved around a toy pistol outside Frazier's hotel room. When Frazier came to the balcony, he pointed the gun at Frazier and yelled "I am going to shoot you." After the fight, Ali summoned Frazier's son Marvis into his dressing room, and told him that he had not meant what he had said about his father. When informed of this by Marvis, Frazier responded: "you ain't me, son. Why isn't he apologizing to me?"

For years afterwards, Frazier retained his bitterness towards Ali and suggested that Ali's battle with Parkinson's syndrome was a form of divine retribution for his earlier behavior. In 2001, Ali apologized to Frazier via a New York Times article, saying "In a way, Joe's right. I said a lot of things in the heat of the moment that I shouldn't have said. Called him names I shouldn't have called him. I apologize for that. I'm sorry. It was all meant to promote the fight". Frazier reportedly "embraced it", though he later retorted that Ali only apologized to a newspaper, not to him. He said: "I'm still waiting [for him] to say it to me." To this Ali responded: "If you see Frazier, you tell him he's still a gorilla."

Frazier told Sports Illustrated in May 2009 that he no longer held hard feelings for Ali. After Frazier's death in November 2011, Ali was among those who attended the private funeral services for Frazier in Philadelphia. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who spoke during the service, asked those in attendance to stand and "show your love" and reportedly Ali stood with the audience and clapped "vigorously".

Later years

Frazier lived in Philadelphia where he owned and managed a boxing gym. Frazier put the gym up for sale in mid-2009. He was diagnosed with diabetes and high blood pressure. He and his nemesis, Muhammad Ali, alternated over the years between public apologies and public insults. In 1996, when Ali lit the Olympic flame in Atlanta, Frazier told a reporter that he would like to throw Ali into the fire. Frazier made millions of dollars in the 1970s, but the article cited mismanagement of real-estate holdings as a partial explanation for his economic woes. Frazier stated repeatedly that he no longer had any bitter feelings towards Ali. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has named the Joe Frazier's Gym in its 25th list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2012. In 2013, the gym was named to the National Register of Historic Places.

Frazier continued to train young fighters, although he needed multiple operations for back injuries sustained in a car accident. He and Ali reportedly attempted a reconciliation in his final years, but in October 2006 Frazier still claimed to have won all three bouts between the two. He declared to a Times reporter, when questioned about his bitterness toward Ali, "I am what I am."

Frazier attempted to revive his music interests in late 2009/2010. Notably popular for singing 'Mustang Sally,' both Frazier and manager Leslie R. Wolff teamed up with Welsh Rock Solo artist Jayce Lewis to release his repertoire in the U.K., later visiting the Welshman in U.K. to a host a string of after dinner speeches and music developments. It would notably be Frazier's last U.K. appearance.

Death

Frazier was diagnosed with liver cancer in late September 2011. By November 2011, he was under hospice care, where he died on November 7. Upon hearing of Frazier's death, Muhammad Ali said, "The world has lost a great champion. I will always remember Joe with respect and admiration." Frazier's private funeral took place on November 14 at the Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church in Philadelphia and in addition to friends and family was attended by Muhammad Ali, Don King, Larry Holmes, Magic Johnson, Dennis Rodman, among others. He was later buried at the Ivy Hill Cemetery, a short drive from the Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church.

In popular media

He was played by boxer James Toney in the 2001 film, Ali.

He played in "The Fight of the Century" against Ali.

Some of the most memorable moments in the 1976 boxing-themed feature film, Rocky—such as Rocky's carcass-punching scenes and Rocky running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as part of his training regimen—are taken from Frazier's real-life exploits. In the film, Frazier makes a cameo appearance, promoting the fight between Rocky and Apollo.

In March 2007, a Joe Frazier action figure was released as part of a range of toys based on the Rocky film franchise, developed by the American toy manufacturer, Jakks Pacific.

Electric bassist Jeff Berlin wrote a musical tribute simply called "Joe Frazier," originally recorded on the Bill Bruford album Gradually Going Tornado, available on the compilation album Master Strokes.

Mr. Sandman, a video game character in the Punch-Out!! video game series known for being one of the toughest opponents, was based in part on Frazier.

His granddaughter, Latrice Frazier, appeared on an episode of Maury.

Wikipedia

#Joe Frazier

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hypnopumwrites · 4 years

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Four friends at the coffee shop

Reggie and Jake were sitting with Maia and Louis. The coffee shop, Janet’s, had just opened last week, and it was as nice a setting as the four of them were going to find, given that none of them had jobs…

Reggie was mourning the loss of his wife still, but Jake was helping him to get through the pain. Maia and Louis were mostly along for the ride, but still, it wasn’t hard to forget all the intervening years, and just see the four of them, riding their bikes again, on that dark forest path in the shadows of the Pennines. Gods, it had been years.

* * * * * * *

Jake, Peter, Meg and Jess were sat in the window booth of Janet’s, a Halifax institution. Teens, businesspeople, and everyone with an hour to kill had been coming here for over twenty years. Jake was looking at the photo. Meg was looking uncomfortable. Peter was somewhat confused.

“Sorry, but you’re saying that this photo came from 1987? You can see how that’s not possible, right Jess? He threw up his hands, placatingly, as Jess snorted, opening her mouth, ready to respond. “I know, I know, you knew this Reginald guy, and that you think this is him, but… Come on. Jake’s not fifty. He’s thirty three. Even if he was alive in the photo. He’d look younger than he does there. Maybe it’s just a really good shop?”

Jess was exasperated. This was another mystery, to add to the others. The time travel. The disappearing and reappearing mountains. Her need to create the image (which she was currently doodling on a napkin). They all felt so out of sync, but all connected.

She sighed, and took another gulp of coffee. She wasn’t really interested in what Peter had to say, so she shrugged.

* * * * * * *

Jake put his hand on Reggie’s shoulder.

“Hey, don’t you try and brush me off on this. You said your friend had a flute or something right? Like the book? Come on, we’ve been friends since school, we all want to know, and it’s hardly like we’re going to disbelieve you, not after what we’ve all seen.”

Maia and Louis nodded. Louis leaned forwards, his characteristic crooked smile plastered on his face. “Look mate, it’s hardly news to us, all this magical stuff. So why’ve you kept stum about it all these years?”

Reggie looked between them all, and put his head in his hands.

* * * * * * *

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Well, Meg, Jess, you might. Peter, you haven’t seen it.” Jake was nervous, Jess could tell by the way that he was sweating. “Meg, Jess, you know how I told you about the snowfoxes, their quests? I was speaking from personal experience. Mine was easy. But I got a gift for completing it.”

Peter was still looking confused. Jess, surprised, leant back; Meg however leant forwards, eager. “What was it? What did you get?”

Jake looked around at all of them, then up at the ceiling. He looked like he was looking for an escape route. “Time. I got time.”

* * * * * * *

“What do you mean that it wasn’t the right time?” Jake was looking a little offended, but Reggie cut him off before he could start shooting off comments.

“None of you were there. Jake you’ve been gone for the last five years, dropped off the radar. Maia, Louis, you’ve been off in Leeds. What should I have done? Written a letter? I didn’t even have an address. It was bloody chance that we all ran into each other on Christmas eve. And don’t get me wrong. I’m thankful. That each of you have come to me again in a bad time in my life, but don’t pretend that I’ve been keeping this a big secret from you all. I haven’t.”

Maia and Louis looked taken aback at the heat in his words. But Jake looked mollified. “You’re right. I guess we should be happy to be together again, and besides, the backpackers haven’t all met since what, 88?”

“87.” Maia corrected him.

“87 then. But we’re back, Maia, you and Louis are expecting. I’ve had some exciting things happen to me since then, and Reggie, you’ve got the flute. I think we’ve got what we need to pull this off. And we’ve got the time to do it.”

* * * * * * *

“What do you mean ‘time’?” Peter was looking even more confused, but he was clearly intrigued.

“So. Peter, I know this is a lot for you to take in. But that photo is real. It was taken the third to last time that the Backpackers, that’s what we’d taken to calling ourselves, met. The next time we met was in 92. Maia and Louis were expecting -”

“Me?” Meg had cut in. Jess was shocked. Jake looked surprised. Peter’s eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head.

Jake recovered first. “What do you mean Meg?”

“I mean, they’re my parents. They passed away a couple of years ago now, but I recognise their younger selves. Dad thought that moustache made him look cool.” Meg looked out of the window, slightly wistfully. Jake continued his story.

“Anyway, in the intervening time, those five years, I’d been diagnosed with liver cancer. Untreatable. Given mine and my friend’s old dabbling in the occult. I took it upon myself to try and get help that way. If medicine couldn’t help, maybe magic -”

“Magic? Magic. Jake you’ve gotta understand how crazy that sounds right? I knew you were into the whole dream thing, but actual magic? That’s a bit far, you know?” Peter was almost pleading with Jake. His voice begging him to tell him that it was all a joke. All he got was a stony stare.

Jake’s eyes did not leave Peter’s. “You’re looking at a bona fide picture of me, taken over thirty years ago, looking near exactly the same as I do now. Where do you want me to start explaining from? Because if you have a year I’ll try and show you that which your mind cannot comprehend.” There was a pause. “No? Well. Let me finish.”

* * * * * * *

“I’ve been a snowfox. I completed my quest, and my reward was that I got to ask for a boon. I asked for the cancer to be gone. What I got was time. My body is frozen. I need to eat, to sleep, to breathe and to drink, but my health is stuck as it was four years ago. It hurts. But I’m alive. And, as far as I can tell, I’ve got a few years to go. So what I’m saying is that we can complete the ritual. Seal him away. For good. What do you say? You in?” He stuck out his hand.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Reggie joined him. Maia nearly did, but Louis caught her hand, and looked at her bump. She did too, they looked up, obviously torn.

“No. No, it’s okay. You’ve got someone else to think about now. Me and Reggie, we can do this. If there’s a change of idea for you, here’s my address.”

#Writenow #January2020 #Writing #writblr

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linseysezines · 5 years

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Memoir: Lung Cancer

There’s something everyone keeps a secret. It’s usually some small flaw about yourself that you don’t want the rest of the world to know about and that’s okay. However, there are some secrets that will cost you your life. Never in a million years would I have thought that this would happen to my family and I but it did. I had always thought that these type of situations only happened in movies and TV shows, but I guess they needed to get their inspiration from somewhere too. My uncle was a guy who can stand in one room and have all the attention on himself. He was indeed like a bright ray of sunshine as my aunt would say ever so often. She didn’t tell him that. She only told us and that was after my uncle lost his battle to Lung Cancer.

I remember the day being somewhere back in May and it was a nice warm evening in Sri Lanka. My family decided that it would be nice to go their during that time of year back when I was in the seventh grade. It was a short time but reconnecting with my family in Sri Lanka after a couple of years really got me closer to them. I remember the palm trees were swaying as the wind gently caressed through them, the weather wasn’t too hot it was just right and the sun had begun to set which left the sky a wonderful shade of orange. This was the day that we were all celebrating my cousin’s birthday who had also come over from Singapore as he decided to come down for a few weeks because the countries were so close. Everything was going great. There was music, food and all sorts of weird fruit I’ve never eaten before and most of all my family were all together on that special day. However, there seemed to be one thing missing and that was my uncle. My cousin had told me specifically to go find him so we can all cut the cake. So, I looked around the house and ended up going outside. There was no one outside. He seemed to have vanished and so had his motorcycle. This usually wasn’t a good sign because that meant that he had gone to drink with his friends. Drinking wasn’t necessarily a bad thing but he did it excessively, not only that but he smoked tobacco too. The doctors had already warned my uncle that his kidneys were going to fail if he kept us his habits, that his serosa would be gone and his liver would be damaged. We all knew that he moderated his drinking after that, but no one really knew what happened after he got back into the labour field. That party day came and went. My uncle didn’t show up until the party was over. My cousin was quite mad at his father for disappearing like that. It was in fact rather strange that he did that considering that it wasn’t his usual behaviour. My uncle always knew where to draw the line between important things but that time was as if he didn’t care anymore. No one knew for sure what happened that night, not even my aunt. However, days went by and nothing like that happened. So we all decided to let it go and think of it as an outlier.

Just days before my departure from Sri Lanka something alarming happened that I wish I had never had saw. Maybe I didn’t realize at the time that this was something very significant or was going to be in the near future. He was smoking. The following days I would just catch him going outside but I did not dare go check it out since I knew deep down what was going to see. I didn’t tell this to anyone not my mom, my dad or my aunt and cousin. I have not talked about it to anyone until I decided to write about it. For a while after my family and I came back to Canada, I did not feel right. My aunt would often call us on Skype and fill us in as to what happened after we left. Everything seemed to be fine in contrary to my beliefs.

Months went by and everything was fine until we got that one call that changed everything. “He’s been diagnosed with stage three Lung Cancer”, my aunt said over the phone in an emotional voice. This was not much of a shock to me because I knew the things he did would eventually lead to this very moment. For just one last time we decided to go to Sri Lanka once more. The climate and surrounding were still happy as ever and welcoming. I remember walking into my uncle’s house was the scariest part because he was different. My uncle who was once a man who stood tall was in a wheelchair hunched over, lost hair and looking malnourished which I later learned that he was having a difficult time eating because of the Chemotherapy he was undergoing. My aunt had to grind up most of his food too small pieces or try to make the food drinkable and then try to force feed him the food. He could no longer do anything on his own. My aunt had to be there for him every step of the way even for the simplest tasks. He could no longer go anywhere without the assistance of my aunt. Everywhere he went she would trail behind him pushing his wheelchair. The Chemotherapy was especially tough on my uncle. There were some days he couldn’t control his pain and all we could do was sit back and pretend not to see it and try to unsee it. We couldn’t stay much longer in Sri Lanka with a life still awaiting us in Canada so we had to go back. The weeks after that was my aunt filling us in through Skype. One night she mentioned that he had swallowed batteries in an attempt to end his suffering once and for all. As a result of this, he was admitted to the hospital for the longest while until they let him out occasionally to visit his family and stay for the weekends. It unfortunate but his condition only kept on getting worse. It was hard for my aunt to contain her emotion especially with no one else around as her son was back in Singapore with no way to come to Sri Lanka and my family and me who couldn’t come to support her. She would occasionally cry over the phone and we could do nothing but listen in agony as she would pour her heart out to us about my uncle’s struggles.

However, it all came to an end on June 26th, 2016 as he passed away in hospital losing his four-month battle to lung cancer. My aunt and most of the family were shocked as to why he lost the battle so fast and too soon. His doctor stated that most of his cancer had spread beyond his lungs and there was nothing they could do about that. He also said that since he was diagnosed at what seems like the final stages that he may have been either ignoring predominant signs or keeping them a secret. With all that being said, I knew that deep down he had been smoking almost every day and drinking at later times. What’s shocking is how deadly a secret can be and the cost of keeping them could be costly. In this case, it was his life. The doctor also said some words that my aunt wished she’d never heard which were that she should’ve helped control his habits or gotten him help before it went this out of hand. There’s a part of me that feels as if I am at fault that my aunt was not aware of my uncle’s secret habits.

It’s unfortunate the way that things had happened and the way that things ended. I know I am not responsible for what adults do on their own time and it is not my duty to keep them safe or keep tabs on what they do. I do not intend to show my writings about my family tragedies to the rest of my family. I have accepted that this is something I will have to take to the grave with me. At the end of the day, the most important takeaway message is that secrets can be harmful. Maybe if I had said something, things could have been different or vise versa and had he not kept his habits hidden too.

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ezinelinseybee · 5 years

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Lung Cancer By.Linsey Bollegala

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3ezentrum3-blog · 6 years

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Cancer and the False Hope Peddlers

In February of 2011 my seventy-multi year old mother, with whom I was close, was determined to have arrange IV pancreatic disease. For right around a year she had been griping to her specialist about serious acid reflux, loss of craving and a torment that began in her stomach and made a trip to her back. In light of my mom's dissensions, her specialist had recommended to her solitary acid neutralizers amid her office visits which my mom kept industriously because of her distress. In the long run her specialist - in the wake of crediting huge numbers of my mom's grumblings to maturity - perceived that the manifestations may uncover a more genuine condition. Lamentably it did. Her specialist alluded (she had a HMO) my mom to a specialist who did directed an endoscopic exam to decide the wellspring of my mom's inconvenience. The growth that was found was develop by at that point and was likewise forcefully spreading from her liver to her lymph hubs. I conversed with the diagnosing doctor who was not especially idealistic but rather would not say to what extent this still energetic and sharp-witted lady had left to live. (Mother was an extremely adroit Sudoku player.) After conversing with the specialist I at that point attempted to reassure her as she took in this about this virtual capital punishment. She was as yet sluggish because of the pharmaceutical that was utilized to put her under amid her exam.

I realized that my activity at that point was to tend to my mom and to comfort her to the degree that I could. I initially learned as much about the infection as I could. (An alternate type of the tumor would yet end the life of Steve Jobs.) I took in the numerous conceivable reactions of the treatment that was suggested for her - chemotherapy. Mother and I visited the first of a few oncologists she would see. This was a man who had positively no bedside way. He painted a shocking - and exact - conjecture of what she could expect - the agony, exhaustion, and so forth. Her second oncologist was not as ruthlessly real to life - a remarkable inverse actually. He never said the word passing. Rather he prescribed for her chemo and an extremely costly medication called Tarceva (Erlotinib hydrochloride). He touted the medication as a marvelous savvy tranquilize that would do ponders for her while never saying it would spare her life - sufficiently reasonable.

My agony and my mom's torment came to fruition when he and others didn't enlighten her concerning what side effects may probably create due to the chemo. For instance, when we gave our reservations about chemotherapy, this specialist and his medical caretakers fundamentally disclosed to us that queasiness, male pattern baldness and so on., where for all intents and purposes incomprehensible because of new supernatural occurrence drugs. Mother encountered every one of these manifestations in spades. At the point when mother started to have odd tremors, her new specialist acted like he had no idea with respect to what was at the base of this condition. I, then again, completed a straightforward pursuit about the infection to see that tremors were normal. Nor were blood clumps in spite of the fact that she was not advised those resembled to create also. So for what reason did the specialist keep Mom oblivious with regards to the impacts of her chemo and her medicines? Is it true that it was done to not terrify her?

No. I trust this: patients with fatal ailments are kept oblivious and given false expectation so as to keep them dependent on the restorative universality concerning the treatment of their ailments. This is done to keep these appalling spirits dependent on a mixed drink of to a great degree costly medications. They realize that while individuals enthusiastically may attempt elective solution for minor diseases, they once in a while go for broke when their lives are in question. In this is the open door for the medicinal/pharmaceutical industry to round up billions. I discovered that a few people decide to not have chemo at all on account of the abatement in the personal satisfaction that they foresee. I discovered that numerous others attempt utilize elective solutions. I am not suggesting either. I am proposing that to fill individuals with false expectation essentially to help this benefit machine is remorseless.

Mother kicked the bucket half year later while she was in home hospice. She was a scarcely conspicuous, shell of herself. She had pondered, in one of our last discussions, if her specialists had utilized her dread of death to keep on pushing these meds. I have most likely that they did. Just before mother passed on - hopeless and frightened - I conversed with the principal oncologist we saw. He was a man whose authenticity I would first loathe and later come to regard. He said that the supernatural occurrence tranquilize that the second oncologist touted was not suggested for the patients of the specialist who had composed the momentous article on Tarceva. He likewise disclosed to me that his mom had bosom malignancy and had chosen to do without getting chemo by any means. I simply wish that the medicinal - and especially the pharmaceutical - industry would see these individuals as more than wellsprings of benefit or as columns to hold up their exceptionally lucrative business. Selling false expectation is the sleaziest exchange of all.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/master/Carl_Mitchell/480484

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7364757

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northshoregadgets · 7 years

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His Savior, His Life and His Friend: Losing a Dog to Cancer While Going Through Cancer Myself

I have finally found the emotional strength to share with you a new story about my dog, Trucker. Many have followed my stories of his antics through Dogster.

Sadly, this story is of his passing. It has been hard for me to relive it all, but I wanted his followers to know. I will share with you here a modified post I made to Facebook in January, shortly after he died.

Trucker and me in February 2013. He always looked at me like this. Photography courtesy Tracy Aherns.

In July 2015, Trucker developed a small, soft mass on his left upper leg and other similar masses on his body. All were tested and the one on his leg had mast cell cancer present.

He was operated on to remove that mass. His legs were long and the skin to work with was scarce. The doctor did an excellent job removing the mass and surrounding tissue and scored the skin to help it stretch out. I was told that cancer could return if the margins were not clear.

In June 2016, I was diagnosed with Stage 2B breast cancer. While I was undergoing chemotherapy and very ill, I noticed a bump on Trucker’s leg above where the incision was before. It began growing quickly. I made an appointment to see his local vet and the mass was tested, revealing cancer had returned.

I was told that he needed to see an oncologist at a veterinary teaching hospital over an hour drive from where I live. I made an appointment to visit them for a consultation in October 2016. I was too sick from chemotherapy to take him sooner.

Trucker didn’t have much loose skin left to remove the mass. It was certain he’d have to have his leg amputated to remove the mass and definitively diagnose the grade of cancer. The higher the grade, the more advanced the cancer would have been.

I discussed all options with the oncologist and asked her to be brutally honest with me. Trucker was 12. The maximum life expectancy for a dog his size was 8-12 years. The oncologist did a needle biopsy of his spleen that day to see if cancer was present. I was told that mast cell cancer ultimately ends up in the spleen in the advanced stage. She also biopsied an armpit lymph node to see if cancer cells were present.

Results showed that cancer was in the lymph node but not the spleen. Since it was already in his lymph node, we knew it was traveling in his body. Even if we amputated his leg, the cancer was probably elsewhere.

I chose not to amputate his leg. He needed to live his life as a happy dog in the last year or two remaining. If he had his leg removed, he would have still needed chemotherapy. Chemo would have been only 30 to 40 percent effective.

Factoring everything, I chose conservative means to treat his cancer. I also had to think of my own health battling cancer as I was facing upcoming surgery and radiation.

I discussed all of this with the oncologist and she understood my decision to treat him conservatively, trying to keep the mass at a smaller size.

She told me he would have 6 to 12 months to live. We discussed what “the signs” would be that cancer had taken over his body. She said the mass could abscess. At that stage, his health would be very poor and he could develop swelling in the leg, which would be painful.

I gave Trucker four Benadryl a day, which made him tired but kept the mast cells from getting too active. I also gave him the maximum amount of prednisone he could take to keep the mass smaller. Prednisone made him want to drink and eat more.

Trucker’s cancer mass on his leg. Photography courtesy Tracy Aherns.

In the last few weeks before he was euthanized, the mass started to grow and I could see the pressure on his skin. He was also pacing more because of the prednisone and possible pain.

A day before his passing, the leg had suddenly swollen upward toward his armpit. The skin was red and hot to the touch. He was more tired than normal. He laid on the floor gingerly and had trouble pushing himself up. I had to lift him from the floor a couple times. He also had trouble climbing stairs.

We went to the vet January 12, and when she saw Trucker she said, “He’s not the same dog.” I knew this. On the ride to the vet he laid in the back seat of my car and rested his head on the seat. He never did that. He always wanted to stick his head out the passenger window. I kept one hand on him as I drove, holding his leg with the mass in my hand.

When we got to the vet clinic he was slightly dragging his back leg when he walked.

I learned he was swollen in his shoulder, both sides of his chest had swollen lymph glands, his leg was swollen most of the way up, the side of his face was swollen in his neck area, his heart rate was 150 instead of normal 120 and he was having trouble walking with that back leg.

The thoughts from the doctor were that the mast cells had spread fast, his heart rate was troubling and could have been due to anemia, his abdomen seemed a bit distended (perhaps his spleen or liver was also affected now) and the leg dragging could have been due to pain or a neurological issue. Bottom line, the cancer had taken over his body.

He laid down on a large quilt when he was euthanized. He always loved blankets. He was strangely at peace and didn’t tremble or fight to get up.

Trucker never showed his age. He didn’t get gray hairs on his face until this past year. He was always active and loving.

When he was euthanized, the veterinarian cried before I did. She loved him as many people did. I told her I couldn’t cry because it would upset him. I would not cry until he left. I fed him bits of treats as he was put into a sleepy state before being set free.

I told him that I loved him, I thanked him for caring for me, I said I would see him again, that I would keep fighting and that he would not have to worry about me now. Just after 11 a.m. he went heavy in my arms and I finally cried.

My vet told me she felt I made the right decision based on everything she saw that day. He could have died at home or while spending the night with my neighbor who babysat him. I worked nights and was set to go back to work three days later.

I did not want Trucker to suffer. His health was declining fast and I felt this was the time – peacefully.

I knew when I went to that vet appointment Trucker was not doing well. I did not know it was that bad. I know he hid so much from me because he was taking care of me during my battle with cancer. Animals can hide things so well.

I pray he is held by Jesus and those who have left before me. I pray that he heard me, that he understood and that he knows I loved him.

Holding Trucker as he left this life. Photography courtesy Tracy Aherns.

The day Trucker left was brutally raw. I was on the floor holding him, my head covered in stubble after losing my hair to chemotherapy. He was also fighting cancer and I had to let him go.

I asked God to bring me peace that I made the right decision and that Trucker was now watching over me. His life was hard before meeting me (he was 5 when I adopted him). I did so much to bring him peace in the almost eight years we knew each other. He was loved by many people near and far, a life he never would have had.

Trucker had been discarded three times, forgotten by so many people, like a child bouncing around from foster home to foster home. He had severe separation anxiety and fear of storms. Then he met me during a pet adoption event and he learned about peace and love. He was free to be himself. I never raised my voice to him or scolded him when he acted out due to anxiety. I told him “I understand” and “It’s ok.”

Because of my patience, he stopped cowering and was thankful.

I understood him. I also fought anxiety in the past. Plus, both of us had been abandoned by people we loved over the years.

I shared Trucker with the world through my stories and photos of our life together. I was his therapy. He was mine.

As a friend said, “You were his savior, his life and his friend.”

Thank you all for loving him, too.

Footnote: Two months after Trucker died I met another dog, a senior I named Angel, who picked me as her new guardian. I plan to share a couple more stories about my years with Trucker and now stories about Angel who has a following on Instagram (@raisingmyfurrychildren) and Facebook (http://ift.tt/2v0BUwR).

Thumbnail: Photography courtesy Tracy Aherns.

Read more about dogs battling cancer on Dogster.com:

8 Things to Remember When Fighting Cancer in Dogs

Immunotherapy Trial to Treat Dog Cancer Shows Promising Results

What You Need to Know If Your Dog Gets Diagnosed With Cancer

The post His Savior, His Life and His Friend: Losing a Dog to Cancer While Going Through Cancer Myself appeared first on Dogster.

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