FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!!!!! Of course this is from a Mom whose daughter fought with all she could. It beat her. BUT it won't beat everyone. FIGHT!
God Bless you.....thoughts and prayers with you...

Tom,
I could have dictated your post from memory. I had the same feelings that you seem to be expressing.
I was 27, I assume you are older than me, so we'll say 45'ish. Doesn't matter.
My 2 cents worth...
Money..was important to me until cancer took all I had and then some. I lost everything to the tune of over 1 million dollars. I lost my practice, my home and my credit rating.
I will not live long enough regardless if I had cancer or not to ever recoup that loss. I really could care less. If I have my family around me, money doesn't matter. Some of you will be chewing you nails...saying Mike's a dentist he doesn't have to worry about money. I don't worry about what I don't have. I have no savings, massive credit card debt, huge loans that built my office. (I'm happy...yeah I read that and had to slap myself.)
If I had not had a wife and a son when I was diagnosed I would not have had the treatment.
You have three grandchildren. I envy them, I don't remeber my grandparents. My son has all four and he loves every minute he spends with them.
I'll leave you with this...Life is a fight, more or less, It's up to you to decide if it's a pillow fight with your grandchildren or bare knuckles with your brain. I used to get angry and beat myself up by overthinking and analyzing every aspect of what I was going through. It wasn't healthy for me, but be reassured Tom we all have had similar thoughts.
I wish you well and pray for you to find some comfort with any decisions you decide to make.

Cheers Tom, by posting you have said what I'm sure so many wanted to but did not. Yes, In my 5 months here we have debated this a couple of times. It doesn't hurt to share your thoughts and is certainly bound to help someone else.

Take care,

Mike

You probably put this issue out for debate Tom, more eloquently than in any previous discussion.
Money isn't really an issue here as far as treatment goes--everyone is treated equally, but there are still the issues of lost income etc.

The 'Quality of Life' issue is one which I am sure we all think about a lot, even if we don't openly discuss it.

The first thing I did before deciding to have treatment, which has only ever been mooted to prolong my life anyway, was talk to my nearest and dearest--who were all desperate for me to 'go for it'. But that's because we knew the side effects SHOULDN'T be too horrendous.
But my family are well-aware of my wishes, that if I feel I can't go on and we're only looking at buying weeks/a few months, then it's hospice care and the most physical comfort I can have.
(I have promised them that I won't jump off a bridge as suicide invalidates the insurance payout!)

It's totally scary to think we're going to die and the statistics don't seem to mean a thing when it comes to deciding 'Is it worth it?'

But take a piece of paper and and jot down all the lives you've impacted on--I'm sure you'll find there's more than a ripple going to be left!
Your thought-provoking post has, as others on here have said, made an impact on us all--it's taken me this long to respond because I just felt you had 'said it all'--apart from you should have 'tidal wave' instead of ripple!

Brenda

I am overwhelmed reading this it has put many of my feelings into words. Certainly nothing foolish about your blog Tom!
"Brief if life, but long is love"

Well, my little tantrum sparked some interesting comments. This thread makes me aware that I never did 'angry' the first time. I did scared and determined and focused and tough, but I didn't do angry. Frankly, a LOT of what I'm feeling now feels more about last time than this time. Fighting cancer is like a super slow motion battle against a chain saw. Now matter how well you defend yourself, you get cut a little. A little here, a little there. You win, but you know you've been in a fight. The angry is about the inability to keep from getting 'cut'. You can see it coming, you know it will hurt, there is no way to move out of the way.... "The only way out of here is to get past the guy with the saw...." We sit still in the chemo rooms, we lay quietly under the radiation machines. We know (soon enough) what it will do to us, yet we keep going back and doing it again and again. What an incredibly passive way to fight something so deadly. I think thats where the anger comes from.

Give me a weapon, a knife, a gun, even a stick and I'll fight whatever you send through the door at me. I'll be on my feet, I can roar and charge and swing and bite and hiss and scream and hit and kick. But this is an invisible enemy, tiny, diffuse, unreachable. And it isn't charging through the door at us, we brought it in ourselves - its always in there - inside - lurking - threatening - ruining. Roaring and striking doesn't affect it at all. It doesn't care if you are tough, big, little, young, old, strong or weak. Cancer is the ultimate bad guy - ruthless, without conscience, no eyes, no soul, no form - just evil.

So we fight back with potions of invisible molecules and invisible beams created by others. We endure, and suffer and wait. We visit others who press the fight for us. All we do is show up. And keep showing up. We get up when it knocks us down and we show up again the next time we are summoned. We amaze ourselve and our families with how much punishment we can take in this invisible war and keep showing up again. Passive punishment.

Every chemo room should have a firewood pile and some axes for splitting wood. Or an anvil and a collection of heavy hammers with which to pound. There should be a rage room where we could go and scream. There should be a heavy bag that we could punch until our arms grew too heavy. I wouldn't have had the energy for much of any of that when I was in chemo last time, but I would have tried. Maybe the chemo rooms should be shaped like the octagon of the ultimate fighters. The relatively powerless feelings made me angry last time, and here it comes again.

Nothing like chatting with friends to get that 'emotional enema', and dump some of this bad juju. Overwhelmed is converting to determination again - just like last time. 'Poor me' is beginning to convert to 'watch out cancer - I'm comin'. Tom J

"Every chemo room should have a firewood pile and some axes for splitting wood. Or an anvil and a collection of heavy hammers with which to pound. There should be a rage room where we could go and scream. There should be a heavy bag that we could punch until our arms grew too heavy." for all the above see carers

I hear you about the anger, Tom. I am just starting to feel angry about having to go through what I went through--as well as the lasting issues, of which it seems that I've had more than my share. If I got a recurrence I'd be even angrier, I'm sure. Go out and chop some wood into little sticks....

Nelie

Great to see that determination coming back! And if ever the arms grow too heavy to punch that bag, we'll be here to help hold you up in the fight! Fight mode is good. Hang in there and stay close to this site.

A two-time breast cancer survivor myself, I remember well when I was first diagnosed...I stomped, screamed and beat on the walls....I cursed God and asked 'what have I ever done to deserve this?'
....after a while, a thought reverberated throughout my head and shook my entire body...."WHO do you THINK YOU ARE that you should be spared this disease??? Yes, I had been a 'good' person, never intentionally hurting anyone, loving, caring...

It finally settled in my brain....'Lois, you're NO better than anyone else who has had to experience cancer...it's YOUR turn"....
That was in 1986, then a recurrance in 1996....(I don't know, and don't WANT to know if it recurred in 2006, so I haven't been to a doctor...lol....)

It falls under the heading '*hit happens'...bad things really do happen to good people...

Grandma always said (and Grandma was ALWAYS right) "that which does not kill you, STRENGTHENS you"....I firmly believe that!

Lois

I hate to admit that "I'm a little off", I never sat quiet in any treatment room. I brought my guitar, sang, invited student Dr's and nurses etc. to come check me out and tried to make as much fun as I could. Every time I went and still wait in the "waiting" room, sometimes for a couple of hours, I always look for the seat beside the scardest looking person in the place.
I walk up to them and introduce myself. Then I ask them if they have a favorite song so I could play it. Wether I know the song or not I play it soo...sooo badly that they have to laugh. Then I play some songs almost perfectly. Usually, it becomes a happy carefree spot.
Basically I take the gas out of the chainsaw...most times it help me and hopefully someone else.
On one occasion, the person I sidled up to basically told me to get lost, so I did. I came back later with the hospital gown on and walked right by him with my ass bare for him to see...yeah I have no pride...grabbed my guitar and walked back to the treatment room. I was playing a few songs while my favorite cocktail was dripping into my veins and he peeked in and asked if he could come in and listen...of course I said, "sure." 2 minutes later we started talking and I think I made him feel better. I saw him a few more times and he always came to listen to me play and talk to me. Unfortunatly he passed away four years ago. Shortly after when I was going for follow-up a woman approached me when I walked in, guitar case in hand. She handed me a card and said Thanks. I had no idea who she was. She was this man's sister, in the card was a note from her saying Thanks for helping my brother cope with his treatment. There was also a sheet of music for the song, "I will survive." The bottom of the sheet had a not that read, "Thanks, the way you played this hurt me more than cancer every did...learn it for me."
I was attempting to ruin that song when I met him to try and make him smile.
Rambling....
Tom, angry...yes I guess I occasionally had that emotion, my guitar was my chainsaw and as long as I played it I guess I thought I wasn't being played.
Don't let this beast play you.

Cheers,

Mike