Shocked and Dying

MY DYING WISHES: I have a small bucket list. I’m told by some that a bucket list can lengthen your life if you work to fulfill it. I cannot save my life, but I do want to lengthen it somehow, somewhat – a bit?! I’m dying, and in addition to the long list of things I must do to put my life and death in order, I have some simple pleasures I wish I could enjoy. I created my bucket list. I created it knowing it had to be short because I only have a few months to live. I created it knowing I will probably never fulfill any of the items despite the fact they are small, inexpensive things to most people. I cannot fulfill them because in addition to the “bad luck” of dying of cancer, I’ve had a really bad two years filled with other “bad luck.” I live in Las Vegas. My husband has been unemployed for two years due to lack of construction jobs due to the recession. I’ve already stopped paying all bills in my name, and we still barely make the COBRA, medical insurance co-pays, and car payments. My husband and I are raising my two-year-old grandson and caring for my father who has dementia. Diapers over rule Bucket List items, as does managing my father’s medical and health care. I spent the last few days negotiating with the mortgage company to stave off the foreclosure on my home for a few more months to prevent my son and daughter-in-law from being homeless. I spent the last year as a caretaker for my mother because she was dying of old age and cancer complications. I promised her and my father they would never be placed in a hospice or hospital to die. I honored my word. Mother died March 2010. I’m still providing care for my father. We struggle but we survive – at least up until now. Fulfilling a Bucket List of any type is beyond our means. I certainly would like a few pleasures before I die – simple pleasures – inexpensive pleasures. I know it sounds selfish. But a few pleasures between the awful tests that remind me of how soon I’ll die, and the long waits in the doctor offices to discuss how soon I’ll die – well …it would be nice to have just a little enjoyment between those awful days. I wonder, if there is a philanthropist or just someone who is doing well that would offer to fulfill an item on my list? But there is little hope for me these days.

I’M DYING VERY FAST: It’s such a shock – finding out you are about to die. I was just diagnosed with Esophageal Cancer. It’s not a simple cancer. It’s a death sentence. It’s 95% fatal. Some are lucky (if you can call it that) to be in the special 5% who were diagnosed early. I’m not “lucky.” I have about 2-4 months to live. Two weeks ago, I was told I have a 5-inch tumor in my esophagus. I spent several days sitting in doctors’ offices, waiting in crowded rooms, wasting hours of my limited life while sharing overbooked appointments with specialists who have little care for my lack of time. In addition to doctor appointments, I spent several days being probed, scanned and offering my arm for more and more blood tests – not to cure me – but to provide more detailed “palliative care” and to give a more accurate account of just how limited my time may be. Palliative means they’ll try to make me as comfortable as they can while I die. It’s almost laughable, because the specialists don’t mind wasting my “very limited” time so they can drain my insurance funds a bit more.  The "lucky" few in the 5% sometimes live a year of rarely maybe even five years.  They were diagnosed early, when their tumors were smaller than the size of a thumb or just polyps.  If you read posts on the cancer sites, you'll find most of those in the 5% die within one-to-two years.  I get two-to-four months.