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Has PCa been the worst death-scare of your life so far? Or have there been others, even worse?

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Posted 4/24/2023 2:05 PM (GMT 0)
A year ago on Easter Sunday Mandy and I took an inaugural ride together on the Harley. Something happened, and my inexperience on the bike almost proved extremely costly. The balance of the bike unexpectedly shifted and we drifted into oncoming traffic. I knew we were going to die. I couldn't make the bike go back into the proper lane and there was a semi coming towards us with no room for him to navigate out of our way. I thought we were going to end up like Jax Teller on .Sons of anarchy. Somehow we drifted towards the centerline and we escaped death by no more than a few inches. We could hear cargo rattling around in the box of the truck and I'm still not sure how we did not get sucked under.

The entire event was surreal, and yet peaceful. All I could think was wow this is how we die. Sometimes it feels like the angel of God simply picked up the bike and moved it over.

A few miles down the road I pulled the bike over and promptly threw up. It was months before Mandy would get back on the bike. I don't blame her. I took a motorcycle safety class and now I know what to do in that type of situation. With God's will it will not happen again.

What I learned from that experience, however, was that death will be peaceful. There will be perfect clarity. It's what's supposed to happen. Someday the time will come for all of us. There's no escaping it. When the time comes, there will be peace.
Posted 4/24/2023 2:33 PM (GMT 0)

clocknut said...
…I served during the Vietnam era, working as a prison guard at the Fort Dix stockade…

I was an MP at Dix during the latter part of that era before being shipped out to Europe. Many of the guys we picked up after payday in Wrightstown ended up in that stockade..
Posted 4/24/2023 2:46 PM (GMT 0)

Todd1963 said...
….I took a motorcycle safety class and now I know what to do in that type of situation….

Wow, just, wow! I rode bikes for years and then took 37 years off (marriage, house, kids, career change, moved…) but returned to it exactly 2 years ago. I did LOTS of research and since I’ve never owned any vehicle new I decided to get a brand new bike, a 2021 Yamaha FJR. It checks all the boxes in what I was looking for and I now have over 20,000 miles on it.

When I first rode it, the fear of death, or at least of injury, hovered over my head in a way it never did when I was younger and it took me a while to convert that to caution and alertness. I wanted to take the MSF classes but they were not offered anywhere near me so I watched YouTube videos and did the drills and I aced those slow maneuvers in the driving test for my license. In those 20,000 miles, which included 2 long trips, Montana to Maine and Montana to Seattle, I have had a few close calls but have anticipated them and, so far, have kept it on the rubber. Safe riding to you.
Posted 4/24/2023 4:22 PM (GMT 0)
Todd -

It was so distressing to hear that you and Mandy had such an awfully close call on your motorcycle!

Thank goodness that you both escaped serious injury, though rattled!

But something you said about it was quite interesting: "death will be peaceful."

You may, in that terrible instant of that near-disastrous accident, have experienced an event that some scientists have claimed is a physical fact: that in the instant of extreme physical threat, the brain releases a powerful, calming endorphin, that produces a tranquilizing effect on the mind at that terrifying moment, better enabling us to deal with the situation.

It turns out that there is little solid research on this phenomenon, how or why it happens, but perhaps you really did experience an instance of it.

And this is not to say that the psychology and emotion of dieing is just some kind of biological, chemical reaction in the brain. No, it may just be that the tranquility at the end, whatever its origin, is only part of a wonderful, amazing process, that of dieing, that we have barely begun to understand.

In any case, I'm very sure I speak for all here in telling you how happy we all are to hear that, terrifying as your experience was, it all worked out okay for both of you.
Posted 4/24/2023 4:53 PM (GMT 0)
Lieutenant I think you hit the nail on the head. Although I did not take the initiative of researching the science regarding the phenomena, I believe it to be true. Some would call it faith. Peace that surpasses all understanding!!
Posted 4/25/2023 8:24 PM (GMT 0)
Clocknut: Yeah, but other than those things........
Posted 4/26/2023 12:58 AM (GMT 0)
1.) Encephalitis
2.) Stroke
3.) Pulmonary Embolism
4.) PCa
Posted 4/28/2023 9:57 PM (GMT 0)
I guess I coulda/shoulda died in Korea, not in war time.
We were all in the NCO club drinking mixed whiskey drinks and they closed the bar for the night.

An old sergeant who said he served with Audie Murphy in Italy said he nhad a bottle of Cognac we could drink.
He brought it and I had a large glass, maybe 12oz. He poured and said say when. When it was full, I said when.

I drank it straight down and said that tastes like whiskey and collapsed.
I remarkably woke up the next morning and the guys told me about it.
They just let me sleep the night before.

Now, a real scare: I was just diagnosed with stage 4 kidney disease.
Stage 5 means dialysis or transplant. Good luck getting a transplant at 84.

I immediately cleaned up my diet and did see a nephrologist. Mt GFR numbers have risen (good) 2%, but I know I'm not out-of-the-woods. It's going to be a lifelong change, but I hope to stay out of stage 5. This has made me aware of my mortality.
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