I feel good!
Today is the first day in over 3 months that I felt well.
Now I get to go back to the doctor to be tested to see if I have cancer - because my infection finally seems to be cleared up. I can tell my critics - “See, the doctor was correct, it sometimes takes a few months to get over it.”
You cannot believe how everyone thinks they have a medical degree in their impatience for you to get over what you have. Talk about Jewish mothers! And everyone seems to know more than your doctor…if they believed you were sick at all. (I wonder if one of Job’s friends wasn’t his mother in disguise? Although, was Job Jewish? Incidentally, when you’re really sick, people certainly show their true colors - you get to know who your friends are.)
Nevertheless, for one who can’t wait to die, I don’t handle being sick very well. I am even more impatient than the “Job’s friends” I’ve had around me. I realized that dying involves being pretty darn sick sometimes…which isn’t very pleasant. You have to go to the doctor, take meds, go for test after test. You endure the arrogant analysis of family, ‘friends’ and co-workers, and occasional mockery and doubt. It’s hard to pray, let alone read, and forget entertainment. The interior struggles and temptations are incredible, simply incredible.
I keep thinking, you get sick, take pain meds, and die. I forgot all that precedes the final curtain call, with the “Witches of Endor” stirring the pot. (Why are some people such witches?)
When my mother was ill, my dad yelled at her for being lazy and seeking sympathy. When she was dying in hospice, the nurses thought she may be more comfortable at home, and she begged them not to send her there for fear of my dad’s abuse. I forgot about how unpleasant it was for her to be sick and dying. I forgot that much of my family’s concern was a result of our not knowing how to deal with her illness, let alone comprehending she was dying.
When a former employee was ill, I was certain she was exaggerating her illness and that she should ‘buck up’ and come to work. Until she died in hospital a couple of weeks later.
I knew many people misunderstood in their last illnesses. I can’t say they all died in peace. I knew a Jehovah Witness who experienced the rejection of her Church because she had smoked cigarettes. In hospice, her Lutheran cousin kept telling her she would go to hell if she didn’t accept Jesus. Her last night on earth, she had asked for me, but I was at adoration praying for her. It had not been a peaceful death.
At any rate, I think I’m learning my lesson, and since I’m feeling better, I find it amusing that the Little Jesus has taught me this lesson - sort of a “what goes around, comes around” lesson. I get the joke, and it’s so on me!
When you’re sick - go to confession - He heals more than the wounds of our souls, while preparing us to follow after Him.
Just think how He was laughed to scorn, jeered, kicked while He was down, whipped and scourged - and then came the crucifixion. He didn’t deserve it. And I have the audacity to complain. One of the best things suffering accomplishes however, aside from humility, is great detachment - provided one accepts suffering. One begins to understand the prayer of John of the Cross, “To suffer and be despised.” There is a joy in that, even when you deserve it.
Accept it or not, everyone will face it. Even if one expects to die peacefully in their sleep, although, I doubt it’s like that - there is an inevitable suffering in dying - unless one is a saint. Despite that, I want to experience it in all of it’s rigor - provided I attain heaven.
If it turns out I do have cancer - which I really doubt (I’m so dramatic!) - I would never accept treatment to reverse it. I would never, ever want my obit to read, “Died after courageously battling cancer.” What the hell are you battling? For what? (I always wonder that when I read those obits.)
Adviso: If anyone reading this wants to battle it, go ahead - and congratulations. It’s my preference not to. 
January 31st, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Glad you’re feeling better today, Terry. So you’ve been pestered by amateur doctors lately? Geez, we’ve all of us got to put our two cents in, don’t we? I hope you don’t have cancer.
Most of my relatives on both sides of the family die from cancer. It doesn’t just run in the family, it rampages. Some cancers can be cured or delayed. But even when they can’t, at least you have time to say goodbyes, get your ducks in a row estate-wise, and see to the state of your soul.
There’s nothing in Catholic doctrine that says you have to aggressively treat an illness if it’s not curable, at least not as far as I know. I’m wondering if anyone knows whether we have to seek or accept treatment if there is a chance to be cured.
February 1st, 2007 at 7:46 am
I’m wondering if anyone knows whether we have to seek or accept treatment if there is a chance to be cured.
The Church teaches one is obliged to seek proportionate treatment — which means one weighs the type of treatment to be used, its degree of complexity or risk, its cost and the possibilities of using it, and comparing these elements with the result that can be expected, taking into account the state of the sick person and his or her physical and moral resources.
Determining whether a given treatment is proportionate or not can sometimes be difficult. Usually a patient’s well-formed wishes are to be respected. But: I think a patient who sees any cancer treatment as disproportionate may need a little more formation! If a course of radiation therapy, for example, has good prospects of extending your life for many more
healthy years, it seems to me that any burdens of the therapy would not be disproportionate to the benefits.
Terry: Thank you for your blog, and prayers for your health.
February 1st, 2007 at 8:33 am
I think I would not seek treatment, either. Although most people don’t agree with this line of thinking.
Accepting the death God has chosen for us is a great grace. If we truly believe in God’s promises we should look forward to our death. It is the day that we finally will get to meet Him face to face! This life should be a preparation for that day. I can’t wait to meet all my Catholic family in Heaven and be able to talk to all my favorite saints.
February 1st, 2007 at 9:26 am
I’m glad you are feeling better, Terry!
February 1st, 2007 at 9:46 am
You’re moving closer and closer to the top of my prayer list, guy!
But I sense a few smiles, snarls and defiance when you type away on posts like this. I believe that they are good for the health in the long run.
February 1st, 2007 at 10:29 am
Terry,
GET WELL SOON!!! I mean that!!
You are SUCH a fascinating person, I am really glad to have ‘found’ you in the cyberworld! You have seen and done so much, in the worldly sense AND in the spiritual sense, and you CANNOT LEAVE YET until you tell us all the hints and advice you have learned.
At least consider writing a book (with photos of your artwork!)– or two — to help out the rest of us!
You’re in my prayers. You MUST get better!
February 1st, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Terry, you have my prayers. I knew we had a lot in common. I have prayed that you wouldn’t share the cancer experience. A couple years ago, I was given a cancer diagnosis, and rather grim prognosis. I chose an aggressive treatment with surgeries, radiation and one year of chemotherapy. It’s been a surreal journey by any measure, with much pain. But I am still going, and the odds move in my favor each day. I personally felt a responsibility to take available measures to prolong my life, since I was relatively young, under fifty. I am now profoundly grateful for the gift of life, for the benefit of medicine which wasn’t available that many years before, and for some of God’s grace to realize what this trial is really all about.
I am also profoundly grateful to have somehow discovered you, and your blogging, in my cyber explorations. Sometimes I wonder what purpose I am still here for, what lies ahead. I have absolutely no doubts about your purpose, my friend. It is to help to bring clarity to our vision, out here in cyberspace, through the sharing of your life’s journey.
I have always liked St. John of the Cross. To paraphrase him, “What takes place on the other side when all for me is overturned into eternity, I do not know. I believe, I believe only that a great love awaits me.” I always pray that this can be my own testament.
I don’t have a clear idea of what heaven is really like. I’d like to hope that I could live something like the life I’ve long imagined the Charterhouse affords, the life I could not lead on earth. I’m proposing a kind of heavenly Charterhouse. Should I get there first, I shall try to reserve that cell on the one side of me for you (Don Marco on the other side please), and should you go first, I expect to find a vacant cell next to yours.
Kind regards, Michael
February 1st, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Michael - thanks for your kind comments and advice. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.
God bless you, I pray you continue to get well!
United in prayer,
terry
February 1st, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Well, I for one do not enjoy suffering. Nor do I see it as something grand that I should be thankful for. However, it can and does happen and it sounds like you’re trying to meet it the best way you can and yet still be human about it. Sorry, but some of the saints are SO inhuman about it. I swear you can almost see St. So and So cheering as the doc says, “Sir, you have AIDS.” Like who’s going to say, “Thank you, God” for that? *rolls eyes*
You rock, TN oh and no worries about those witches…they’re not ALL bad. (:
February 2nd, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Dear Terry, I will certainly keep you in my prayers. When my father was dying of bone cancer, it seemed like no matter what we tried to do to help him, it backfired. So we learned (on a deeper level) that everything is completely in God’s hands. May Our Lady be constantly at your side, as surely she is.