Facing Death

How many here have had to look the grim reaper in the eye? I did almost two years ago, waltzed with him for three months and I didn't blink. However, that experience changed me  in ways I am still trying to understand.

I knew I was gaining weight, feeling like I was dying, hurting from head to toe and generally feeling crappy. I would wake up in the morning feeling like a truck had run over me in the night with a body so stiff and achy I literally couldn't move for a few minutes after standing.

I had spent the last 7 years going from doctor to doctor trying to get a definite Dx but one eluded me. I saw an Orthopedist about my lower back, he said, ankylosing spodylitis and herniated disc/ with degeneration... wanted to do surgery. I saw another Ortho who said my cervical spine is "a mess" (stenosis & Myleopathy) and wanted to do surgery.  Finally I went to a Rhumey who said I had Osteoarthritis and Fibromyalgia, so I got on the internet and began to read. Along the way I ran across an academic paper about the correlation between Fibro and Thyroid function.

I went to an Endocrinologist who thought I may have a pituitary tumor because of the weight gain, so she sent me in for an MRI. No pituitary tumor, but a HUGE (tennis ball size) Meningioma was living in my right sphenoid process and pushing into my temporal and frontal lobes. The tumor was pushing my brain way to the left an pulling on the brain stem, my brain was swelling and I could die at any time! I was in shock! What to do...what to do! I now had a new Dx's of Brain Tumor, Poly Cystic Ovary syndrome, no Hgh and generally screwed up hormones to add to my growing list of aliments.

Fortunatley, I live near Houston, where M.D. Anderson hospital is. My endo sent me to a great neuro who sent me to MDA and their best neurosurgeon. My life became a whirlwind of tests, mri's, ct scans and trips to the hospital. I did what I needed to do, with my husband by my side the whole time. The tumor was removed in May of 2007.

But in those quite moments when no one else was around, the grim reaper and I danced. It wasn't the thought of dying that I found so hard to deal with. If I died...it would simply be over for me. No pain, no thought, no nothing.

No, what got me was...the thought of another woman stepping into my life! How dare someone else share the best life experiences with the children I bore and raised. How could someone else live in the home I spent years decorating and gardening in. Loving my husband and being loved by him? It broke my heart! It made me angry! It was the thought of missing out on seeing my two youngest sons graduate college, get married, seeing my first grandchild born (oldest son's wife was pregnant). It was the thought of someone I love needing help and me not being there to help them. It was the fear of being forgotten.

It did strange things to me emotionally that I will never recover from. It made me go to places within myself, I now wish I hadn't gone. It made me look at myself and family from a position I never would have otherwise. I can't say I am better or worse off for having experienced it all, but I am profoundly changed. I can't say I have beat the reaper...I have just evaded him for awhile.

Post Edited (Falling apart in TX) : 4/22/2009 12:52:53 PM (GMT-6)

White Beard said...
Falling apart in TX

I find your post very interesting and very thought provoking, maybe it is because I am a male, maybe males and females think differently? or maybe it is because I have worked in a career (Onocology Unit) that death was something that happened and all to frequently! Personally I feel it is just a transition from one state of being to another, whatever that might be! I hope this doesn't sound funny or weird, but when I worked on Onco and one of my terminally ill patients passed on I said Goodbye to them and  I wished them well on their journey!

I agree it is just a transition, I personally believe in heaven. Death is nothing more than the final step in the cycle of life.

If I die tomorrow will I be remembered? I don't know? But does it even matter? I will not be here! I will be somewhere else! Where ever that might be! My life here will be over, so why should I care? While I am here and when I think about it, YES, I get a little sad, but then I realize, that when my time, does come to leave this existence here, it will not matter! It just won't, because I won't be here! I will be gone!

On this I disagree. All we have of the ones who have left us are our memories and sometimes genetic coding. It is the memories that keep us tied to them, that keep them tied to us. Maybe it is a female thing, but having children and raising them is a labor of love. From the time they are born we look forward to those milestones in their lives including graduation,marriage and grandkids, the thought of being robbed of this was hard for me to bear.

I am in the process of getting a divorce, my wife could very well find another person to be with, just as some day I might find someone else. I don't know that either one of us will or won't find another person, but it is possible! What is the difference, between that?, and one of us dieing and the other finding someone else? Are we are both not going on, and continueing with our lives, in one way or another, in what ever fashion that might be?

I am sorry to hear of your impending divorce. It always makes me sad to hear of such things.

I guess the biggest difference in our perspective is not so much gender as it is choices, and the right and time to make them. If I had chosen to divorce my husband, or he me, then I am sure I would have felt differently at the time. However, we have been together for 35 years and the thought of it all of being taken away from "us" through no fault or choice of our own was just too much to bear at the time.

Thank you for Posting. I enjoy reading your posts very much!

Just my thoughts!

White Beard

Pamela,

Fal-ling...I love that!

I am glad if my post has helped you somehow.

I just felt the need to get it out.

I hope you have a good, restful evening!

Fal-ling.

Edited for spelling.

Post Edited (Falling apart in TX) : 4/22/2009 7:12:36 PM (GMT-6)

                      Do not stand at my grave and weep,

                      I am not there, I do not sleep.

                      I am a thousand winds that blow,

                      I am the diamond glints on snow.

                      I am the sunlight on ripened grain,

                      I am the gental autumn's rain.

                      When you awaken in the morning's hush,

                      I am the swift uplifting rush,

                      Of quiet birds in circled flight,

                      I am the soft star that shines at night.

                      Do not stand at my grave and cry,

                      I am not there; I did not die!

And this is the other poem, that I  like!

                      When I come to the end of the road,

                      And the sun has set for me.

                      I want no rites in a gloom filled room,

                      Why cry for a soul set free.

                      Miss me a little-but not to long,

                      And not with your head bowed low.

                      Remember the Love that we once shared,

                      Miss me-but let me go.

                      For this is a journey that we all must take,

                      And each must go alone.

                      It's all a part of the Master's plan,

                      A step on the road to Home.

                      When you are lonely and sick of heart,

                      Go to the friends we know.

                      And bury your sorrows in doing good deeds,

                      Miss me - but let me go.

I truely love both of these poems, because they both express exactly how I feel about death and dieing! I must admit who ever the authors are they sure had my thoughts in mind!

White Beard

Thank you all for your kindness I am humbled your words as I feel each of you as you try to imagine that pain.

It did profoundly change my life and still does each day in some way. I think it made me a better Mother,daughter,friend. I take not one moment one second of life for granted, I let not one day pass that I dont speak my mind,let the words flow to those in my life for I know first hand that tomorrow may take my chance to say them away.

I help my daughter as she left this life and her life slipped away. It had been a long hard battle for her and she was weak and tired and in far too much pain for a body so little,that moment of transition from life to death brought such peace and tranquility to her face that I knew at that very moment in time like I had never knew anything else,that yes there are some things worse then dying.

I was mad,angry,God,higher powers,whatever turned his back on me that day and took away the very essence of my being. I spoke harsh words to alot of people that day and hurt many feelings as I ranted and cursed all that I believed in and finally as I sat in the court yard at the hospital my Moms Minister of music who had been a lifelong friend of my families came and sat with me. He says to me "why are you so angry? Why are you cursing the very beliefs you have? I looked at him awed that he could ask such a thing at such a time and yet fearing if I opened my mouth I would curse a "man of God".

He went on and wouldnt stop in persistance of the whys and finally I shouted at him that I asked his God to help me and my child and got nothing,nothing,how could such a loving idol turn his back on a child in misery?

He said to me very quietly, what exactly did you ask for? I said I asked him to make this better,do something anyting. He says then what exactly do you think you didnt get from that?

My child is dead! He said you asked him to make it better,do something for you or for her? He could not undue the wrath that nature had done to her but he could do what you asked of him and make it better for her and he did just what you asked of him. She is now in no pain,she doesnt fight for each breath she takes,her kidneys are not leaking posion into her small body no longer,she is at peace and surrounded by those who love her and are here no more and cherished in the memory of those left behind,what a legacy for her.

Those words sustained me thru days and nights I thought I would lose my mind! I slept under her crib for many a night, I carried her small clothes in my purse, I heard her cries in my moments of darkness but in the end each new day brought a little more peace in my heart. One day I would smile again when I remembered her,one day I could go to the cemetary and celebrate her birthday with joy and not so much pain and one day I knew it was OK and she was better for her passing.

I guess in it all I got caught up in the make her betters that I forgot that it isnt so much as what we ask that higher power as how he responds to our asking. It simply is a matter of be careful what you ask for isnt it?

The poems are lovely and I had heard one of them before but not the other and it is so so true.

Dont ever think your words are insignificant at those times,they might not be acknowlged right then but the reciever is listening somewhere in the grief and will recall your kindness when the fog of grief lifts,you cannot ever say the wrong thing in voicing your feelings about death to someone when it comes from the heart.

It isnt a subject any of us care to think about and the contemplating of losing another child well just gives me cold chills! I know though thru it all somehow we survive one day at time,maybe the fact I had other kids that needed me,I couldnt turn away from life and leave them or their pain made those steps lighter for me then it does for some. I too PAlady seen those who stand still in those times of loss,it as though their feet are far too heavy to move and their hearts are certainly broke like nothing else can. I have no idea why some us survive and others dont fare as well but I am sure it had to do with those that held me up when I couldnt hold up myself.