Cancer Diary: What We Want and What We Get -- Making It Work

 


Probably everyone has a little video in mind as to how they would like to spend their last few minutes on earth, i.e. how they would like to die. Far from all experience their imagined scenario.

Carl was fortunate to die surrounded by family and cats. Even though nothing was said, it seemed like everyone understood that Sunday night would be Carl's last (he died early Monday morning). No one retired. Carl slept in his favorite lazy boy lounger in the living room -- did not want to be taken to his bedroom. I slept in the lounger next to him and leaned up against him. It was much more comfortable than it may sound. Our sons were on the living room couches, and our daughter was in a matching lounger right behind Carl and me. Carl slept with his legs elevated, as always, and his beloved Happy Cat and Snyezhka slept under the footrest. Another four cats, including Murjan, himself dying of cancer and in what turned out to be the last month of his life, were scattered around the living room. Everyone was tucked in for the night; we all woke in the morning, except for Carl. It was an easy way to die and perhaps fairly deserved after five months of torture with cancer of unknown primary. 

But few get this kind of gentle death, where the last breath is simply a peaceful, unnoticed cessation of breathing.

Barbara Karnes, brilliant observer of last days, whose works became reassuring guideposts to us during Carl's last days, has written a great column (short, insightful, informative) on this topic: "I Wanted Dad To Have a Gentle Death, But..."


For other Cancer Diary posts, click HERE.

Blog editor's note: As a memorial to Carl, and simply because it is truly needed, MSI Press is now hosting a web page, Carl's Cancer Compendium, as a one-stop starting point for all things cancer, to make it easier for those with cancer to find answers to questions that can otherwise take hours to track down on the Internet and/or from professionals. The CCC is expanded and updated weekly. As part of this effort, each week, on Monday, this blog will carry an informative, cancer-related story -- and be open to guest posts: Cancer Diary. 

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