Cancer Diary: He Stopped Talking

Snyeshka, who ironically died of cancer shortly after, with Carl in hospice.
 

Near the end, Carl dozed a lot. Even when he was awake, he was not talking. By his side at nearly all times were two of our cats, Happy Cat, who was pretty well known as Carl's cat and was actually at Carl's feet when he died, and Snyezhka, shown above with Carl, who spent much time with him during his very last days--as if she knew. (They say cats can sense death.)

Since Carl could not or was not motivated to talk but we were pretty sure was aware of what was going on (other than during his long dozes), we did the talking in order to maintain communication as much as possible. There is a lot of medical evidence that hearing is the last sense to go, so we counted on his being able to hear. Once in a while, he confirmed that with a tiny laugh or a small.

We had friends, colleagues, and authors whose books he designed send their memories of how he had made their lives better. I read those to him. One of them he clearly liked because he laughed aloud.

We continued to talk to him even after he died. Until Science Direct arrived to pick up his donated body, we took turns sitting beside him and talking to him. 

The talking helped us. We hope (and believe) it helped him.

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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