"Mike" wrote in message
...
I know what you are talking about Ken lost my Dad to the cancer plus a
cousin
and a couple uncles....runs in the family i'm afraid.....i have blood work
done
on a regular bases....


I watched a very dear friend die of cancer 15 or so years ago. I was at his
bedside when he took his last labored breath. Jack was my best friend,
Jay's, father and a second father to me......hell he was a lot better than
my first....but that's another rant. Jack was a very ordinary man in every
respect and we all....many of us loved him. Those few of you who have
stayed in the cabin we built together in Michigan's UP have seen his picture
sitting on the mantle.

Anyway, I spent much of Jack's last couple of weeks in his company. He'd
gone from 250 pounds or thereabouts to little over a hundred in not much
more than a month. He was dazed and delirious, when conscious, much of the
time despite (or maybe because of) his refusal to take the morphine that sat
on the night stand beside his bed. It struck me at the time (and I still
think so now) that this was not a good way to die, but no worse or better
than any of the others I'd had any close contact with.

About a week ago I heard the tail end of a piece on public radio about a
group of oncology nurses who attended some sort of class or workshop or
something. At one point, they were apparently asked to fill out a
questionnaire of some sort. One of the questions asked them was how they
would like to die. Eighty percent stated that they would prefer cancer
above all other means of dying. There were a number of reasons given. Most
of them revolved more or less around the idea that they like the notion of
having time to say goodbye and take care of whatever business needed to be
done. They also felt that with the medications available today the pain
could be adequately managed. I don't remember the other reasons.

Most of us probably see it somewhat differently than they did.

Wolfgang
funny world