Even if we had proof that there were life after death, it would still be a daunting event to anti- cipate. In nearly every religion there is an account of someone resurrecting from death. As long as man has been able to preserve and pass on his thoughts or practices, stories of the afterlife have been depicted. I am intimately aware of the background of Christianity, the Bible, ancient culture, and Catholicism. Things that used to be presented as absolute truths (Limbo, purgatory, meat on Friday, St. Christopher) no longer exist. The Dead Sea scrolls and other old manuscripts were written earlier than the gospels upon which the New testament is based. There are significant contradictions in these writings with some pretty basic tenets in current Bible translations. Likewise, from kings to councils to translations from the original, Greek to Latin or Aramaic, there have been significant changes made by man. All that being said, it is difficult for me to pay attention to the rules of religions or take the Bible literally.
One of the stories in the Bible involves the risen Christ appearing to Thomas to prove that He had indeed returned from the dead. He tells Thomas "You believe because you have seen. Blessed are those who believe and have not seen." My faith in a life after death has been helped by seeing.
Someone I completely trust has the ability to detect the presence of a recently deceased person. There have been times when he has even sensed the spirit of the person who has come to escort the recently deceased. Most of his experiences happen at the funeral or viewing but it doesn't always happen. This tells me that some people are ready to leave immediately and some are allowed to stay awhile to adjust slowly. No part of this experience contradicts any tenets of Christianity or Catholicism. In fact, his description of sensing the identity of the person rather than seeing a face or body, answers questions I've had about what we look like in heaven. The fact that he sensed someone who had died a long time ago as the escort tells me that the 'soul' of a person continues to exist. This is a very personal experience and I am not putting it on this blog to invite questions or criticism. I am just explaining why I am confident that there is a God and life after death.
I think that the idea that death ends everything is far harder to accept and much sadder than knowing there is still life after death. We all have to go through the process of dying which begs questions like, "Does it hurt?" "Will I be able to have control over any pain?" "How long does the process last?" "May I die at home?' "Once I stop chemo, how long will it be before I am incapacitated?" I realize that no one may be able to answer some of these questions until the time comes and I don't dwell on them. They just pop up every once in awhile.
If there is a stage that combines denial ands acceptance, it would describe me now. I decided to have surgery to remove all the tissue and some of the lymph nodes on my left side. While I accept that there are probably cancer cells circulating around my body since they have already metastasized to a lymph node in my abdomen, I am hoping that removing the left breast and tissue will remove all the cancer. My surgeon doesn't want to do the surgery. He's already written me off. His sister-in-law has stage IV breast cancer and has lived for six years. He is sure that the surgery will not help and will only disfigure. I told him that disfigurement didn't bother me or my husband so I have nothing to lose. Since he is going on vacation and booked in August, the surgery will be sometime in September. We also have plans to go to Colorado the first week of Sept. because John's college football team is being inducted into the school''s hall of fame.
So as I prepare for this surgery, I realize it may all be for naught while still holding a hope that it could be a cure. I have also gotten closer to accepting the fact that I may only live a few more years and am confident that God and an afterlife exists. I have given a lot of stuff away and am very comfortable in my small house. I don't lust after a bigger house or a new car but do order small things on the Internet. Each package seems like Christmas. In small ways they are signs that I'm going to be around to enjoy them. I don't anticipate having to be on chemo constantly. Most likely, the worst case scenario would be 6 months on chemo and 4 months off. when chemo no longer works or the effects of the chemo on other organs becomes too great, I am confident that God will bring me to a different kind of life.
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Sunday, July 5, 2015
Insight on the Meaning of Life
People think that those with terminal illnesses develop some special insight into the meaning of life. Maybe...your thinking is certainly different than it used to be. There is a different thought process that occurs when you think you no longer have an unlimited amount of time to live. You no longer feel like you'll have plenty of time to fix that relationship or make the hard choices that are easier to avoid You accept that not all things in life work out the way you had hoped. You wonder why you had to go through some things that don't connect to any thing else in your life, lessons learned that will never be used or experiences that produced no moral. Even though I've gotten to do some spectacular things in my life, there is a sad feeling of "is that all there is?" The future years always carried the promise of everything the present and past lacked. The expectations of everything all the previous days promised if I just worked hard enough, dissolved. My life is just what it was, nothing more. It hit me that the highs e.g. going to Notre Dame, studying in Rome for 9 months, getting my Master's and Doctorate and mostly having Nicki and David were surrounded by a lot of mediocrity. I should have tried to live more in the moment instead of always working so hard I never had the energy or time to enjoy life. I shouldn't have settled as often as I did. I should have had higher self-esteem and waited for what I really wanted. I should have had the balls to go to grad school instead of getting married. There are a lot of shoulda, woulda, couldas but hindsight is 20/20.
What's really sad is that there seems to be no point. What happens to everything you learn while going through life? Even if there is reincarnation you don't remember anything in the next life (unless you are Shirley McClain). If there is life after death, I imagine that it will be very different from life on earth. The amount of time and effort required to take care of a body will be reduced to nothing. How will time be measured? Will I be able to see my kids, parents and husband? What will I do all day? We all assume we are going to Heaven but the Bible is filled with warnings about how narrow the path to Heaven is. What if I didn't make the cut?
Pascal's argument that you have a 50/50 chance of life after death so you should choose to go with the option that benefits you most i.e. life after death. The problem with that is that choosing to go with a belief does not bestow true belief. There are times when I am not sure I really believe. But I have spent the majority of my 60 years acting as if there is a God and that's a hard habit to break. When everything falls apart, my prayers are genuine and I believe that someone is listening. Am I just talking to myself? Does believing in God just make things easier? It's easy to worship in church when surrounded by other people who do and say things that support your belief. It is harder to believe when you are sitting in a doctor's office and someone tells you you have Stage IV cancer.
Maybe that special insight into the meaning of life comes when, for the first time, you have to acknowledge that your life is going to end and the lives of others will go on without you. All hopes and dreams that belonged to the future disappear. You realize that your life was your daily routine or as John Lennon put it "Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans." Life loses its mystery and promise, it is what it is and it was what it was.
I don't really know what to do with my time if I only have a few years to live. I have no idea what the process of dying will be like. I assume that there will come a point when the cancer will no longer react to the chemo or the chemo will become so toxic to my organs that something will fail. I guess you just wait then until the cancer renders something vital unusable. Its weird to think of just waiting for something to fail. I never though a stroke or heart attack would look good. I want something quick. I don't want to be at the mercy of a slow disease. The loss of control is the most frightening. The only insight I have into the meaning of life is that it goes on whether or not you are here.
What's really sad is that there seems to be no point. What happens to everything you learn while going through life? Even if there is reincarnation you don't remember anything in the next life (unless you are Shirley McClain). If there is life after death, I imagine that it will be very different from life on earth. The amount of time and effort required to take care of a body will be reduced to nothing. How will time be measured? Will I be able to see my kids, parents and husband? What will I do all day? We all assume we are going to Heaven but the Bible is filled with warnings about how narrow the path to Heaven is. What if I didn't make the cut?
Pascal's argument that you have a 50/50 chance of life after death so you should choose to go with the option that benefits you most i.e. life after death. The problem with that is that choosing to go with a belief does not bestow true belief. There are times when I am not sure I really believe. But I have spent the majority of my 60 years acting as if there is a God and that's a hard habit to break. When everything falls apart, my prayers are genuine and I believe that someone is listening. Am I just talking to myself? Does believing in God just make things easier? It's easy to worship in church when surrounded by other people who do and say things that support your belief. It is harder to believe when you are sitting in a doctor's office and someone tells you you have Stage IV cancer.
Maybe that special insight into the meaning of life comes when, for the first time, you have to acknowledge that your life is going to end and the lives of others will go on without you. All hopes and dreams that belonged to the future disappear. You realize that your life was your daily routine or as John Lennon put it "Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans." Life loses its mystery and promise, it is what it is and it was what it was.
I don't really know what to do with my time if I only have a few years to live. I have no idea what the process of dying will be like. I assume that there will come a point when the cancer will no longer react to the chemo or the chemo will become so toxic to my organs that something will fail. I guess you just wait then until the cancer renders something vital unusable. Its weird to think of just waiting for something to fail. I never though a stroke or heart attack would look good. I want something quick. I don't want to be at the mercy of a slow disease. The loss of control is the most frightening. The only insight I have into the meaning of life is that it goes on whether or not you are here.
Friday, July 3, 2015
Stage 2
I think I am slipping from denial past anger and bargaining into depression. I haven't blogged for weeks because, for the first time, I've been really sick. I either caught some kind of bug or had a reaction to a drug or chemo and started coughing so hard my entire body was under its control. I also suffered a pulmonary embolism that landed me in the hospital for 4 days during which time a valve was inserted in my vena cava to catch anymore wayward blood clots that decided to travel from my legs to my lungs. I started to lose my balance and could only walk small distances (couch to kitchen) before having to sit or lie down to catch my breath. Apparently the clots in my lungs were making it difficult for the blood being pumped in to them to be oxygenated. This was also causing my heart to work harder to get the blood in to my lungs. It's scary when you are breathing as quickly as you can and it still feels like you aren't getting any air into your lungs. I then broke out in a rash that covered my arms, legs and feet. Being immobilized, controlled by a powerful cough, covered with a crusty rash, incontinent, unable to walk or breathe and incredibly tired all the time mad me realize why at some point, I might choose to stop chemo. I'm seeing an oncologist, a cardiologist, a pulmonary specialist and my primary care doctor. None of them can figure out what's wrong with me. I had an EKG, echo cardiogram, blood work ups, a biopsy of the rash and a CT scan and they still don't know. I am having a PET scan on July 21st to see if there is an detectable cancer left. If not, I'm having surgery again on my left breast and lymph nodes then radiation. The assault on my body continues. What scares me most is that my body will collapse under the weight of too many assaults, be unable to cope and just shut down. Other things breaking down will probably kill me before the cancer does.
I've taken my health for granted my whole life. The body is a wondrous thing when everything works together but just let a few things get out of whack and the delicate balance is destroyed. It is finally sinking in that I am really sick and might not get better. In the back of my mind I thought I would beat it somehow and be normal again someday. The damage done to my organs by 6 months of poisoning is unknowable at this point but as more symptoms pop up every day I feel myself losing the war. I'm tired of being too tired to do anything, I'm tired of not being able to walk very far without being able to breathe or coughing uncontrollably. There are others in far worse shape than I, I need to remember that and keep some perspective.
Inevitably after several weeks of just reacting to symptoms without finding a cause, you wonder if the rest of your life is going to be like this. Instead of getting better, I will just find ways to cope with new problems that come up. What a useless life that would be. David taught me how to post listings for him on Craigslist. Finally I have something useful I can do with my time from my spot on the couch and my laptop besides just pay bills.
I mentioned that I skipped anger and bargaining. As I mentioned before, this is probably because you have to have someone to be angry and bargain with. I believe in God but I was raised Catholic and so much of Catholicism has to do with sin and punishment that I always feel that I deserve anything bad that happens to me in atonement for my sins and because of that, would not dare bargain on my behalf. As for anger, what's the point? Life is unfair, it always has been and always will. At this point in my life I expect things to be unfair as I have gone through so many glaringly unfair experiences and never once has getting angry ever changed anything.
Depression then, is what I am fighting because it is such a waste of time. It paralyzes which keeps all feelings, good and bad, from being experienced. I want to live my life to the fullest all the way to the end. I suppose it is normal to mourn the loss of all that could have been for awhile. I just don't want to get stuck there. Let's hope "Acceptance" is just around the corner.
I've taken my health for granted my whole life. The body is a wondrous thing when everything works together but just let a few things get out of whack and the delicate balance is destroyed. It is finally sinking in that I am really sick and might not get better. In the back of my mind I thought I would beat it somehow and be normal again someday. The damage done to my organs by 6 months of poisoning is unknowable at this point but as more symptoms pop up every day I feel myself losing the war. I'm tired of being too tired to do anything, I'm tired of not being able to walk very far without being able to breathe or coughing uncontrollably. There are others in far worse shape than I, I need to remember that and keep some perspective.
Inevitably after several weeks of just reacting to symptoms without finding a cause, you wonder if the rest of your life is going to be like this. Instead of getting better, I will just find ways to cope with new problems that come up. What a useless life that would be. David taught me how to post listings for him on Craigslist. Finally I have something useful I can do with my time from my spot on the couch and my laptop besides just pay bills.
I mentioned that I skipped anger and bargaining. As I mentioned before, this is probably because you have to have someone to be angry and bargain with. I believe in God but I was raised Catholic and so much of Catholicism has to do with sin and punishment that I always feel that I deserve anything bad that happens to me in atonement for my sins and because of that, would not dare bargain on my behalf. As for anger, what's the point? Life is unfair, it always has been and always will. At this point in my life I expect things to be unfair as I have gone through so many glaringly unfair experiences and never once has getting angry ever changed anything.
Depression then, is what I am fighting because it is such a waste of time. It paralyzes which keeps all feelings, good and bad, from being experienced. I want to live my life to the fullest all the way to the end. I suppose it is normal to mourn the loss of all that could have been for awhile. I just don't want to get stuck there. Let's hope "Acceptance" is just around the corner.
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