If you knew you only have - at most - a few months left, how would you live your life?
To be slapped with a primary cancer is one thing, to be informed that you have disseminated mets is another....
Definition of cancer, from medline plus:
Cancer = a malignant tumor of potentially unlimited growth that expands locally by invasion and systemically by metastasis
It sure doesn't tell you the implications of being diagnosed with it now, does it?
Having to live.... with that constant, gnawing thought of something growing inside - not just any parasite, but what was once part of you - eating at your core.... slowly, surely - until you have nothing left to give......
It's difficult. So difficult to take in.
I've met so many, who fought long, hard battles with this affliction. A few victories were won - some of them were, sadly, temporary. A portion gave up midway, but most fought to the end.
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A few of my family members had cancer - three known cases on my mom's side, three on dad's. Quite recently, another two relatives were found to have pre-cancerous lesions. Two fell - Grandpa from oesophageal Ca in the 1970s, I gather, and Grandma from disseminated pancreatic Ca.
Dad was a resident in Adelaide, when Grandpa was diagnosed with terminal cancer. There wasn't a good palliative unit in Malaysia back then, so Grandpa came over to Australia - for palliative treatment. My dad's superior granted him a year's leave from work, so he could care for his father to the last moments of his life.
So he did.
Dad told me this story years ago, on one of our roadtrips back to Teluk Intan (Perak). I'm a bit hazy on the details now, but I remember him telling me Grandpa was feeling down and cranky at the end.
Grandma was some fighter when she was diagnosed in November 2005. I was already in IMU, knowing all too well the natural progression of pancreatic Ca. Oh, how she suffered. First the bloating, then the inability to keep food and fluids down. Then came ascites. Numerous taps she had, to relieve her of pressure. The pain did not leave her (although a cocktail of meds did help later on), yet she put on a brave front right till she passed on - as always for her in face of adversity.
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Palliative care has been quite difficult for me - not so much of its principals and management (on the contrary, what the palliative team has done is notably admirable) - but perhaps it reminded me of many things: my grandparents, people whom I have known and succumbed to their illness, of uncertainty, Death, grief & bereavement.
In spite of these, guess I can take comfort that palliative care seeks to improve a person's quality of life, without means of prolonging one's suffering.
"Thinking and talking about death need not be morbid; they may be quite the opposite. Ignorance and fear of death overshadow life, while knowing and accepting death erases this shadow."
-Lily Pincus-
To be slapped with a primary cancer is one thing, to be informed that you have disseminated mets is another....
Definition of cancer, from medline plus:
Cancer = a malignant tumor of potentially unlimited growth that expands locally by invasion and systemically by metastasis
It sure doesn't tell you the implications of being diagnosed with it now, does it?
Having to live.... with that constant, gnawing thought of something growing inside - not just any parasite, but what was once part of you - eating at your core.... slowly, surely - until you have nothing left to give......
It's difficult. So difficult to take in.
I've met so many, who fought long, hard battles with this affliction. A few victories were won - some of them were, sadly, temporary. A portion gave up midway, but most fought to the end.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A few of my family members had cancer - three known cases on my mom's side, three on dad's. Quite recently, another two relatives were found to have pre-cancerous lesions. Two fell - Grandpa from oesophageal Ca in the 1970s, I gather, and Grandma from disseminated pancreatic Ca.
Dad was a resident in Adelaide, when Grandpa was diagnosed with terminal cancer. There wasn't a good palliative unit in Malaysia back then, so Grandpa came over to Australia - for palliative treatment. My dad's superior granted him a year's leave from work, so he could care for his father to the last moments of his life.
So he did.
Dad told me this story years ago, on one of our roadtrips back to Teluk Intan (Perak). I'm a bit hazy on the details now, but I remember him telling me Grandpa was feeling down and cranky at the end.
Grandma was some fighter when she was diagnosed in November 2005. I was already in IMU, knowing all too well the natural progression of pancreatic Ca. Oh, how she suffered. First the bloating, then the inability to keep food and fluids down. Then came ascites. Numerous taps she had, to relieve her of pressure. The pain did not leave her (although a cocktail of meds did help later on), yet she put on a brave front right till she passed on - as always for her in face of adversity.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Palliative care has been quite difficult for me - not so much of its principals and management (on the contrary, what the palliative team has done is notably admirable) - but perhaps it reminded me of many things: my grandparents, people whom I have known and succumbed to their illness, of uncertainty, Death, grief & bereavement.
In spite of these, guess I can take comfort that palliative care seeks to improve a person's quality of life, without means of prolonging one's suffering.
"Thinking and talking about death need not be morbid; they may be quite the opposite. Ignorance and fear of death overshadow life, while knowing and accepting death erases this shadow."
-Lily Pincus-
Labels: Medicine/Hospitals/Medics, Random thoughts
