Posted 3/12/2011 12:43 PM (GMT -5)
Mel, I hear what you are saying.
We all have different personalities and threshholds for things in life, Sonny is a good person, for real, not only here, but in "real life". He has to be strong and positive for other reasons far beyond his own personal medical situation, and I am the first to admire and respect that. In my life, I actually tend to have neutral attitudes about most things, show very little emotion up or down, and really do take most things literally. Sometimes good to be that way, other times not. People talk the glass is half full (positive view) vs. half empty (negative view), but to me, a 16 oz glass that has 8 oz of water in it, is simply 50% full. No philosophy in that.
Many of our brothers here are retired, close to retirement, or able to be retired early. That could be a good thing in dealing with something like our cancers. I lost a job I loved, with hopes of another 10 years of working and got my dx all within a 2 months period of time, right down to the very day. And aside from this terrible economy, I have never been well enough to work since. All of my doctors and physical therapists say that I am not fit to return to work.
This part really depresses me, often more than the failed cancer path so far. I was the Chief Financial Officer of an International Company, that grew from 40 million to over 600 million a year in 3 years. We were opening up offices in Switzerland and London, it was amazing ride. I had a lot of responsibilty and a great future. One crooked person in the organization took the whole thing down by stealings millions, and the company was forced into Chapter 7. To this day, we are still trying to get the bank involved to come clean on their end.
Point, I went from having an exciting career, at the prime of my experience level, to having it taken away, then getting the PC dx, and then you well know the rest of my downhill story from there.
At 58, don't want to be retired, dont want to be out of the game, I am now an ailing, house servant in reality. It's highly likely that I will never be able to work again full time, and my brain won't accept that. And approaching 59, even if I were healthy there is substantial age bias in hiring, I know this first hand.
So, I don't have a lot of motivation. You seemed worried a lot about the pain part of the later end of PC, for some - it is terrible, for others - its just a passing. I am a big believer in high quality hospice care (I would want to be at home), and in the liberal use of pain meds in those situation.
I was in severe daily pain for over 14 months prior to this last operation, so I can speak about the pain part. Give me enough morphine, can handle anything.
Honestly havent given up, viewing my options, waiting my time, not required to make a decision at this time. Time will tell.
I am often better at helping others, than I am helping myself. Had a "head" doctor tell me a few years back, that I was good to other people, but had brutal expectations on myself. Might of had a point.
david