Cancer Diary: He Lay Dying a Long Time - We missed the early signs, ignored the warning signs, and excused bad behavior
Recently, a Cancer Diary post addressed what all too often happens when cancer is diagnosed at a late stage, especially at advanced Stage 4. But how do you get that far without a diagnosis? In Carl's case, we missed the early signs, ignored the warning signs, and excused his bad behavior.
Early signs
The early signs were mostly associated with our expectations of aging. He was getting into his seventh decade. So, we were not surprised when he was no longer up for hiking mountains or spending eight hours a day on the job. In fact, I was always coaxing him to put just a little more time into working since working from the same office, I was quite aware of how much effort I was putting in on a daily and even hourly basis than he was. I chalked it up to his being lazier than usual as he aged. (Work was never where he wanted to concentrate his efforts, anyway. He was an ESTP on the MBTI, someone who loved to play, put things off, and spend time in the outdoors.) But even some of that outdoors stuff was starting to lag, and we did not pay adequate attention to it.
He also started watering the plants less often. I get it. I water them now. It is boring and time-consuming. I would nag him at times to go water without realizing that perhaps there was something more than his being bored.
He like to sit and watch TV rather than join me in at-home gym workouts. We are essentially the same age; I just attributed it to different interests.
And, then, he would doze off from time to time. I figured that was because he was sitting still and watching dumb stuff on TV -- not to the fact that his body was wearing out from something like cancer.
It was so slow, so insidious, and probably the cancer had years (not just the five final months that he fought it) to take over his body, eventually completely.
Looking back, the signs were there. We missed them.
Warning signs
The warning signs were more obvious, but we ignored them -- or attributed them to something else.
First, came the heart attack at age 70, Carl's first visit to a hospital. He was sick to the point of vomiting only one day in his life, when he was 21, so he had never been a patient before -- and he did not like it much. He also held to a wrong notion that he would not release: once you end up in the hospital and being doctored, it is a downward slope every after. For him, it did become prophecy fulfilled. Our priest visited him in the hospital, and concerned about Carl's morbid obesity, told him very frankly that if he did not lose weight, he was afraid that it would not be long before his next visit would be to give him last rites. Prescient in that, too.
Carl did lose weight, nearly 50 pounds, nearly overnight. But since he had been trying for years to lose weight and was even more concerned about his weight after his heart attack, making some minimal diet changes, we celebrated, not realizing that this was a common cancer warning sign. My daughter-in-law questioned him about what changes had led to the weight loss, and he said none, not really, just a few small diet changes. She was puzzled but did not say anything, wishing later that she had put 2 and 2 together at the time. The diet changes were clearly not enough to cause that much weight loss that quickly.
Then came the pain on his right side. It was the time of covid. His doctor had left town and had left a visiting doctor in charge, who was available only part-time and not seeing anyone without an urgent or chronic problem. Since Carl had a cardiologist dealing with his heart issues, he was not troubled by lack of access to a doctor and began self-diagnosing. Always a danger, one that we ignored because covid social conditions did not make it easy to see a doctor -- only folks were covid were getting immediate attention. So, we were on the back burner when Carl got several pains in his side that he attributed to a gall bladder attack. He tolerated the pain which would come and go and figured when access to doctors opened up again post-covid, he might need an exam and perhaps even have the gall bladder removed. As it ultimately turned out, his gall bladder was fine. The pain was from advancing liver cancer!
Bad Behavior
There was bad behavior all around. He would not do any kind of workout. He made only minimal diet changes after his heart attack. The doctor did order periodic blood tests, done in a clinic and discussed by video call, and mainly focused on controlling Carl's diabetes.
We excused it all -- Carl was getting old, medical care was overwhelmed with covid patients, so anything out of the ordinary could wait.
And Carl died.
If only we could do it all over again...pay attention to the early sign, react to the warning signs, and insist on good behavior. We cannot, but perhaps others can.
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.
 |
Follow MSI Press on Twitter, Face Book, and Instagram.
Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC?
Check out information on how to submit a proposal.
Planning on self-publishing and don't know where to start? Our author au pair services will mentor you through the process.
Julia Aziz, signing her book, Lessons of Labor, at an event at Book People in Austin, Texas.
Check out our rankings -- and more -- HERE.
Comments
Post a Comment