John, man, I love you, man because you get it!

Every one should copy your advice/philosophy/rules numbered 1-5 at the end of that message, and memorize them. Those, my brother from another mother, are definitely words to live by when you join this group!

I would add, for the benefit od all but you and Tony (and all of you who nodded knowingly but remained silent,) the following:

a. Get your posterior to the nearest CCC as soon as possible. Reasonably, that means that after you've had a DIAGNOSIS FROM A BIOPSY. NOT AN OPINION, BUT A BIOSSY!

b. When you to into any meeting with any medical specialist (your doctor, you MO, etc.,) about your situation, be it the initial, or any subsequent issue concerning your situation, BRING NO EXPECTATION OR HOPES. KEEP YOUR MIND OPEN!

The natural human tendency is to expect the worst. Well, my friend, you have no idea what the worst is (although you may have imagined something horrendous,) nor have you any idea how much your vision differs from reality!

Write this down: The reality is never as bad as the fear you have.

Doing this is tough, no doubt. But if you focus your mind on that (having no expectations about what you are about to learn), you have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. You will have no disappointment should the news not be the happy news you want; and nothing to lose should that be negative.

Here's the secret handshake: Reality may be unpleasant, but a) it won't be nearly as bad as you fear, and b) it will soon be over and the worst will just a memory, and c. it is what it is, reality. Do not fear reality, deal with it. It will never be as bad as you fears.

Life is good. You may have to look around to see this, so do so until you find it!

Spoken by a member who knows, incurable and 2.5 years into Stage IVc, a group with a zero percent 5-year survival rate. And this ain't my first rodeo with zero chance of survival.

Oh, BTW, yesterday, I just had a load of radioactive micro-spheres of radioactive beads implanted in the right lobe of my liver (where my current metastases reside). There is a new technique of interventional radiology that has shown great success at life extension for liver cancer patients, and is repeatable. My MO is very pumped, and so am I as no chemo is involved.

After two years of near-continuous chemo of one form or another, I'm glad to learn that I'll probably be free of the universal side effect of fatigue.

Life is good!



You may experience loss of function. In fact, you almost certainly will. So what, you won't go through life without life extracting some price from you before you finally check out of the net. This is just one of those situations.


c.