MSI Press Blog

  Since today is my birthday, this guest post seemed very apropos! DYING AND LIVING “Yet if we love one another, God dwells in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us.” --I John 4: 12     I watched Dad die. I was only seventeen at the time, too young to understand much of what was going on. My father had been diagnosed with throat cancer two years before, a disease common to heavy smokers and drinkers. He underwent brutal cobalt treatments and lost his voice. He was in constant pain, unrelieved by the medications. For the last three months of his life he was bedridden at home. Mom, my brothers, and I took turns sitting by his bedside, mostly in silence. He could not speak, and I did not know what to say. It was decided not to tell Dad he was dying, so he could keep up his hope. But he knew. The priest later told us how Dad spoke with him about his dying and not to tell us. So no one said anything about the elephant in the room. In the silence durin...

  In March, Carl was diagnosed with advanced stage 4 (metastatic) cancer of unknown primary. In August, he died.  When we got the diagnosis, we had to choose a detour from our normal life. There was no way to move straight ahead with life as usual because, you see, there was this big obstacle, called cancer, straight ahead. So, the question was to detour to the left and choose a treatment option, hope, and focus on the living or detour to the right and let nature takes its course, choose to accept the situation at face value, letting nature take its course, and focus on the dying. To fight or to surrender? There was no logical superiority of either path, not knowing what lay behind the cancer tree and how long was the path for it  continued out of sight. We decided not through reasoning but through conditioned reaction to fight. That is what we had done all our adult lives, as we successfully navigated life for four children, two with rare birth defects, and three grandch...

  Today's guest post from Dr. Dennis Ortman continues the theme he started last week on dying and living. Journey through Death “Unless the grain of wheat dies, it remains just a grain of wheat.” --Jesus of Nazareth   Pope Benedict XVI, the retired pope, recently died. One of his caregivers reported his last dying words: “Lord, I love you.” He was echoing the last words of Jesus on the cross: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Mahatma Gandhi, called the “Great Soul,” was assassinated. His last words were a cry to God: “Ram, Ram, Ram!” The last thought of these men before they died was not of all the loved ones they left behind, but of God, who was their constant companion throughout their lives. They faced death with a tranquil spirit. Socrates, the epitome of wisdom, faced his death with a similar calmness. He was condemned to die on a charge of corrupting the youth of Athens. His friends tried to convince him not to take that fatal drink. Socrates respo...

Carl, so proud in his new, smaller, fully fitting Scott vest   Indeed, several months before Carl was diagnosed with advanced metastatic cancer (stage 4), he lost quite a bit of weight. Nearly 50 pounds overnight. Now, he was big, very big. Any weight loss, in our thinking at the time, was to be applauded. And so, he ordered s smaller Scott vest and showed off his new slimmer self. (Not slim, mind you, but slimmer -- he was still nearly 300 pounds when he died.) What we did not realize -- and I certainly wish we had is that such a weight loss is not to be celebrated. It is a sign of dying, or at least, of advanced cancer. Instead of showing off his success ("achieved" -- more accurately, "experienced" -- though he was not on a particularly regimented diet), he should have been rushing to his doctor and asking, "What is wrong with this picture?" Perhaps, hopefully, the doctor would have figured out the cancer diagnosis early enough to do something about it,...

Watching the always-obese Carl waste away from cancer (though he still had quite a bit of poundage when he died) evoked terribly deep feelings of helpless and frustration. We were losing the fight to keep Carl healthy, and Carl was losing the fight to stay alive. Some days, it all seemed so pointless.  One bright light that we experienced near the end was that perhaps some good could come of Carl's experience. Yes, there is good that comes from sharing experiences, such as through Cancer Diary. But there is something more: whole body donation so that researchers can learn more and medical students can be trained.  Carl wanted to leave that kind of legacy and, the father of a neurobiology professor who had needed cadavers for her training, wanted to help out medical students become better doctors, and if some research into cancer of unknown primary, of which little is known, could shed a little more light on a dim subject, then he was all for that, too.  We researched and ...

  A somber topic today indeed, but an important one. One that was so completely new to us when Carl was dying from cancer that not only did we not know what to expect, leaving us feeling lost and helpless, but also we had no idea even what questions to ask and where to search for answers, leaving us feeling depressed and fearful. I think that may not be completely uncommon. Here is a clinical description of dying from cancer: Dying from cancer is a process that involves  changes in body function and loss of control over bodily functions .  Some of the common signs that your body is preparing to die are  disorientation, incontinence, rattling breaths, extreme weakness, less interest in food, trouble swallowing, and muscle jerking . These signs are caused by the cancer spreading to different organs and systems, and the body shutting down. Frankly, these signs are pretty scary and disconcerting when you do not expect them and do not know how to interpret them -- let alo...