Tag: Death

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I’ll See You At My Funeral

Jothi

Let me preface this by saying this is not about me suddenly approaching death, so calm down. This is a post that I’ve had rattling around my head for a few years. I didn’t think I would ever write it though, thinking it might be too offensive for some people. But lately, I’ve had some death and near deaths in my circle, so I decided to write it. So if you’re easily offended, or you are uncomfortable with your own self, you better stop reading here.

I find it a bizarre practice that people take the time and effort to go to another person’s funeral when they didn’t take the time or effort to be in contact with the person when they were alive. It’s a bit of a head scratcher for me.

I’m mean, I get people wanting to pay their last respects to a person and say goodbye. But wouldn’t it make more sense to show a person how you care when they were alive? I’m pretty sure that a dead person isn’t concerned about spending time with a living person, but a living person may be. Does a ghost of a person hover over their casket with a clipboard and list, checking off people that show up for their funeral?

“Oh, Uncle Jim and Auntie Sue are here; that was really nice of them to come.”

“Hmm… No Uncle Steve…… geez, I thought we had a better relationship.”

I do believe that actions speak louder than words, or your actions go to the core of how you actually feel. If you say you care, but your actions don’t reflect that, then I think that your actions are saying what’s truly going on.

“I care about you; let’s talk/visit/create some memories.”

“I care enough about you to attend your funeral; see you there!”

To illustrate, I will use some of my own recent life’s experiences. I have an aunt and uncle in their mid 80s and by their own description and their children’s description, they are really slowing down and aren’t able to do certain things anymore. Realistically, they could pass anytime or they could live another ten years. They live thousands of miles away, so visiting is a challenge. It’s easy to let distance be an excuse and a barrier. So I have to ask myself, how much do they mean to me? I can still email, call, or video chat, which are all easy, with minimal effort.

Now comes the bizarre part about being human. Despite how easy it is to pick up the phone, a lot of people don’t. Send a text message in one minute, nope! As human beings, we come up with all sorts of excuses on why we do things or don’t do things. I know I’m guilty of it. I think an excuse is really just a justification in our own minds on why we do something, to make ourselves feel better.

I know people have their own lives and are busy doing them. But they aren’t busy all the time, and then it comes down to a choice, whether it’s a conscious one or a subconscious one. Is this person important enough to me to call/text/email/visit or are they only important enough that I would go to their funeral?

In the case of my elderly aunt and uncle, I made the choice to stay in contact with them because I appreciate having them in my life. But that was an easy one, so let’s ratchet up my internal difficulty.

Recently, another one of my elderly aunts had a heart attack. Which, in its own right is a challenge. To top it off, they discovered while she was going through all her procedures, she has cancer. So to combine age, heart and cancer, it’s a hard road going forward.

So I find myself evaluating our relationship. Again, living thousands of miles away, but this time, I’ve only spent a handful of occasions with her. She has never reached out, except through my parents, and I’ve never reached out either, so it has been a minimal relationship. I care about her as a person, but how would I feel if she suddenly died? Do I try to rekindle a relationship? Or is she someone I see at a funeral? The ball is in my court. All it is, is a choice and an action. Again, it’s pretty easy to email someone.

This post is not about me judging people; this is just an observation of mine. My whole point of this piece is to give encouragement to value the people you value in your life while they are alive and not wait to see them at their funeral.

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521 Days Left

Jothi

I went to the lifespan doctor today. I sat down in her blue medical chair and waited for her to finish reviewing my paperwork. She finished up and said,

“Hold out your finger please”

You see, I was sitting next to the lifespan machine. She pulled out a thin cord that had a tiny needle attached to the end.

“Ouch”, I cried out as she stuck me with the needle and took a little bit of blood.

The dials and wheels on the machine started whirling as it processed my blood and was computing.

It printed out a small strip of paper with the number 521 on it.

“You have 521 days left to live”, the doctor said.

“Good to know”, I replied as I got up to leave. “Thanks”.

🤔 Of course, there is no such thing as a lifespan machine.

Sometimes, I feel like I didn’t have a worthwhile day and it was a wasted. It does leave me pondering, dang, what if I only had 521 days left to life and I just wasted one of them? Sometimes, I just have to live with that thought.

Whoever you are reading this, what if you knew you only had 521 days left? What would you do that would make them good days left?

For me, seeing my wife or kids have a good laugh and a big smile on their faces, makes it a good day.

Going out in nature and experiencing things that make me be in awe, is a good day.

Doing something creative, makes it a good day.

Spending 5 hours a day looking at instagram is a good day…… oh wait, Meta high jacked my account and wrote that in there! Actually for me, those are the days that I feel like I wasted, the ones I spend too much time looking at a screen (I only spend 5-10 minutes a few times a week looking at instagram).

Next time you have a good day, try and identify what made it good and try and duplicate it. Next time you feel you wasted a day, try and find out why it felt wasted and try and eliminate that aspect.

None of us know how many days we have left to live, 1 to 25,000, try and make them count in whatever fashion counts for you.

We don’t have a machine that tells us how many days we have left. I’m going to try and do my best not waste mine.

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Fernando

Jothi

I was cooking lunch today, and the song “Sweet Child o’ Mine” came on. That song has one of the most epic openings of all time; you can’t help but play your air guitar. But it made me think of my friend Fernando.

We weren’t best friends or anything. We spent countless hours at work together, even though we worked for separate companies. Spending a lot of time with “the guys” somehow creates a brotherly feeling.

Fernando loved rock and roll. I remember him always going to concerts and wearing various rock and roll band t-shirts. He had a loud, rich projecting laugh. He loved hummus and celery and would tell me excitedly what flavors of hummus were his favorites. His dream vehicle was a Chevy Silverado. He was so happy the day he drove up after he was able to buy one.

I remember one job. It was my job to completely redo the electrical system of one of the famous “Painted Ladies” houses in San Francisco. The job was near the end. I had taken off my work shoes in the garage, to go inside so I wouldn’t scratch the new floors, to go up to the 4th floor to do some testing.

Fernando thought it would be funny and a good joke to take a roll of blue painters tape and go around and around my shoes with tape, until they were a blob of blue tape.

One of his co-workers called up the stairs in an urgent voice for me to come down.

Unfortunately for Fernando, his boss and the architect made a surprise visit, and they wanted to go over some things with me in the garage.

I got to the bottom of the stairs to see Fernando’s face, stressing out, panicking, and trying to take all the tape off my shoes, worried he was going to get into trouble with his boss. I had a good laugh at his prank backfiring. He wasn’t going to get it off in time, so I just kept walking into the garage in my socks. Fortunately, most people just don’t look at other people’s feet, and his boss and the architect didn’t notice. He had such a face of relief afterward, and we all had a good laugh.

A few months after my cancer diagnosis, about five years ago now, I got a text from a gossipy co-worker. I had gone through radiation and was doing induction chemotherapy (VRD). I was not working and was trying to get my head straight again.

“Did you hear about Fernando?” He asked.

“No, what’s up with Fernando?” I replied.

I was standing out in the backyard, in my garden, and there was no reply. “Well, thanks,” I thought to myself. You can’t just say something like that and ghost a person.

I’m also friends with Fernando’s boss. I called him up.

“What’s going on with Fernando?”

“I was trying to keep this from you” he replied.

“WHAT!?!?!” I said impatiently, getting nervous.

Fernando’s boss is 6 feet tall, gruff, hairy as all get out, an ex-football player, has a good beard as well a gigantic belly, and looks like he should be driving around on a Harley.

He burst out crying.

“Fernando killed himself a few days ago.”

“Oh God,” with tears forming in the corners of my eyes.

I was in shock. I know we kept talking on the phone, but the conversation has been wiped out of my head. I just remember the crying. My work brother was gone…..

We go through our lives creating a network of strings, of connections with people we come across. People who become part of our beings. When people disappear from our strings, there are holes.

You don’t understand what role you hold for other people, but it’s more than you think. It’s something that I think of occasionally, between my pre and cancer life. Sometimes I already feel like just a memory to my pre-cancer relationships. What things will I be remembered for?

For the record, I love hummus and celery as well.

Sweet Friend o’ Mine, Fernando.

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Just Over It Mindset

Jothi

I was reading another myeloma blog today. The author, who has had myeloma for over ten years, was expressing his feelings of just being over it at this point.

I’ve been aware of the “just over it” concept for a while. I’ve seen in other people who had cancer, and I’ve seen it in older people who had lived long enough, having had their fill of life’s experiences.

An interesting thought popped into my head. I wondered what would be better, having a cancer like myeloma that can last years, or have a different cancer that just wraps up your lifespan rather quickly. It’s hard to be over it, when you don’t get the time to be over it.

I suppose it matters greatly on the person, their age, and how much they want to keep living. Not that you always have any measure of control over things. I’ve seen too many stories, such as an example, of a parent of young children, who develop cancer and are no longer with us, who probably would have rather kept living.

Time toxicity is something very real. I think the first time I heard of the concept was from reading an article by an oncologist. Basically, time toxicity in cancer is taking a chemotherapy that they can estimate, will add X amount of time to your lifespan. You gain X amount of time, but you will spend 3/4 of that time driving to the therapy, waiting for the therapy, getting the therapy, being sick from the therapy, getting tests for the therapy, etc etc…

So the end result is gaining a small amount of good lifespan.

Which leads back to the “just over it” mindset. If you are getting to that point, I think it’s important to review what your reasons for doing what you are doing are, and what you have to be grateful for in your life. Then it becomes easier to see what your effort is worth. And if it’s not worth it to you anymore, I think it’s ok just to be over it and move on from your body. It’s a personal and family choice.

I’m personally, not “over it”. Although, on chemo days, when I feel like crap, I do find myself asking the question, “is this worth it”. The answer is always “yes”, but I can see the perspective of “just being over it”.

Anyhow, that’s my random thought for today. Blood test tomorrow, maintenance chemo the following day. I only have blood tests every 2 months now, which is great. I’ll share the results when I have them.

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Fear

Jothi

Leading up to my stem cell transplant, I’ve had a few people ask me if I’m scared or afraid.

Having cancer, it’s a question that I get asked frequently at times.

For those who aren’t familiar with the transplant procedure, a person gets dosed with high dose chemotherapy, that kills all of your bone marrow. All of your blood comes from your marrow, red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. Obviously, without those cells, you die (and people do from the procedure). A couple of days after the chemo, they infuse your own stem cells back into you and after a few weeks they engraft and your body starts producing blood again.

When I was first diagnosed, I definitely had fear go through me. With death looming over me and all that uncertainty, who wouldn’t be afraid. I went over that a bit in my post “The Elephant In The Room”.

Fortunately, a plan of action was formed and I learned a few weeks after my diagnosis, that I wasn’t powerless against cancer. There were things I could do myself that would increase my odds. I started transmitting my fear, although it still took time to work out. I had to face my fears otherwise it was going to drive me crazy.

Let me tell you, being afraid is EXHAUSTING. I just can’t do it anymore. So the answer to the opening question is “no”. I’ve more or less made my peace with death and once I got passed that, there isn’t a lot to be afraid of.

Being scared all the time, I don’t know how people can do it.

Fear is meant as a temporary mechanism to keep you alive. After a certain point, people let fear consume them, and it stops you from living.

Of course, the world just went through a worldwide scare with covid. I know people whose whole lives turned upside down with fear from covid. It was really amazing to witness. People wouldn’t leave their homes for anything. Spraying all their grocery’s with bleach. Avoiding all human contact.

I couldn’t help thinking, “if you’re terrified of covid, try having cancer”. I’m not belittling people’s reactions. Everyone is at a different point in their lives, being able to handle different levels of difficulty. It was just a bit odd for me to watch from a perspective of someone who has cancer. Having myeloma is like being hospitalized for Covid, waiting to see if it’s going to overwhelm your lungs or not.

Worrying about something is like paying interest on a debt you don’t even know you owe.

Mark Twain

I must say that I do find that I do have to remind myself from time to time, to not worry or be fearful. Fear is very good at creeping into the cracks in your mind. It plants little seeds that will grow into bigger things that can be very hard to get rid of.

Cancer test anxiety! What if the cancer is coming back? What if we can’t stop the cancer? Is that pain just a pain or is it cancer? What if, what if? It can go on forever, which is why I find it exhausting. If the answer was yes, to the cancer coming back or being unable to stop it, would worrying about it change anything?

Worrying about things will not change a single thing, so why spend energy doing it?

If you stop to think about it, fear pretty much always has its root in death.

If you are afraid of spiders, they are going to crawl on you and bite you and you’ll die.

If you are afraid of heights, you are going to fall off and die.

If you are afraid of the dark, something you can’t see is going to get you and you die.

If you are afraid of Covid, you’ll catch it and die.

If you are afraid of clowns, umm I’m not sure about that one, but it probably leads to death (🤔 they are creepy and get you?).

If you have cancer, you are going to die.

If we had an amazing perfect life, living in a bubble and nothing bad ever happened to us, we would still die. Death is part of life. Fear is part of life. Being paralyzed by fear is the problem. If I’m going to die from old age or cancer (or from clowns 😜), wouldn’t it be more useful, instead of being fearful, recognize it, overcome it and make the most of each day? Make a positive change in my little section of the world. Affect what I can affect. Wouldn’t you want to do the same?

You are either in control of your mind or your mind is in control of you. I prefer to be in control and not have fear dictate my life. If your mind is in control of you, then you have to work and train your mind. And believe me, it is work and it’s ongoing. No one is born with a perfect mind. It has to be developed and strengthened. Ironically, having adversity and overcoming adversity is one of the best ways to strengthen your mind.

When I was about 8, I had a little stuff animal T-Rex. It was only about 10 inches high. I really loved that little guy. One night I was in bed and I wished really hard that the T-Rex would come to life. I was pretty sure my wish would come true. I was lying there, thinking how cool it would be to have a pet T-Rex, and then it dawned on me, what if (there’s that “what if” again) it came alive while I was sleeping and started eating me (and I died)??? I quickly threw it out of my bed, across the room. I thought, “I’ll just see the alive T-Rex in the morning”. My mind had just created the impossible, and it was terrifying.

“Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones.”

–Thich Nhat Hanh

I was trying to come up with the opposite of fear. Would it be bravery? That seems logical but it doesn’t quite seem to fit. A better fit in my mind would be, if you’re not afraid, you probably have peace or tranquility.

So how do you obtain inner peace or tranquility? Firstly, I would say it’s not something people can have all the time. It comes and it goes for most of us. After all, we are all human and have human reactions. You have to keep working at it, and do your best.

Some people obtain some peace through religion, prayer or being in a holy place. If you don’t believe in any of that (or it doesn’t work for you), try to spend time in nature, such at a forest or beach. In such places, you can face/talk about your fears, accept them and maybe find some contentment.

I like to spend time with giant redwood trees. When you are sitting next to a being that is 2000 years old and will out live everyone on the planet today, it can put life into some perspective. Connecting with nature energy heals your heart and mind.

Breathing techniques can knock out fear quite quickly for immediate or unexpected fears. It helps rein in control the mind. Meditation helps you stay in control of your mind all (or more of) the time, so fear doesn’t take hold.

Practice forgiveness. You can’t have peace within yourself if you are carrying around the bitter baggage of the past. True forgiveness is a tough one for people. “I have forgiven you”. “Then why do you keep bringing it up monthly, yearly, every 5 years?”. If you can let go of grudges, then it’s easier to let go of fear.

You can practice gratitude. If you are thinking about things you are grateful for, and grateful for things that are going well in your life, you spend less time on fear. Gratitude keeps our mind in the present, whereas fear keeps our mind in the past or future.

Your mind can be either a strength or it can be a weakness. It takes effort on your part to strengthen and have control of your mind. I think it’s worth the investment of our time to do so, after all, think of the time and energy we currently invest in our fears.

Dale Carnegie says, “You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind.”

So snuggle with your stuffed dinosaurs, for they won’t bite. High five the next clown you see for trying to make you laugh. And maybe dying is really just the great next adventure.

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It’s A Bit Odd

Jothi

I’m at the Stanford cancer center right now. I’m sitting in a chair having my blood pumped out of my body. It’s laying across my chest and lap, on its way to a machine to filter out my blood stem cells. Another line, from the outlet on the machine, is running up my lap and chest and going back into my body. It’s rather odd (and maybe a bit grody) seeing your blood outside your body, in your lap, going in and out of your body. At times, I feel like my bones are exploding from the stem cell growth factor drug affecting my marrow.

I had to go to the infusion center last night to get a drug that encourages my blood stem cells to leave my marrow to go into my blood, so it could be collected today.

I saw my chemo chair, this one colored orange. It was in a large room that has multiple treatment chairs in it, separated by curtains, that is typical for these rooms. All types of cancer are treated in this infusion center.

I sat down in the chair, awaiting the nurse to run all the regular pre-checks, blood pressure, oxygen level, temperature, etc. She had to run off to do something else. I scooted my butt back and forth in the chair to get comfy.

The room was mostly empty, since it was at night, except for the chair next to me. Almost as soon as I sat down, a nurse went to the woman sitting next to me. I couldn’t see her, since the curtain divided the spaces, but I could hear everything.

“I have some bad news, unfortunately” said the nurse.

“Your labs just came back. It showed that your kidneys are starting to fail and your liver is in trouble. We need to run an EKG to check your heart.”

“Your tumor burden is too much for your organs.”

“We need to admit you to the hospital right now to help clear out your kidneys and liver.”

My heart went out to this woman. I wanted to get up and go over and give her a hug.

A soft sob came from the other side of the curtain.

“How long do I have to be hospitalized for?”

“We aren’t sure, at least a couple of days.”

My nurse came back.

She started saying to me, “Do you have this problem, that problem?

“No” I said, a bit guiltily.

Part of me felt guilty, I don’t know, humans are a bit odd. I guess, I was experiencing some survivor guilt? My situation has nothing to do with hers, and I suppose I could be in a similar situation in a few weeks with the nuclear bomb drop happening on me (sct).

There is really not much I could do for this person, but I still wanted to do something. The feeling of wanting to control a situation that I have absolutely no control over.

I finished my treatment. I was going to go over and just offer a few words of encouragement to this woman, after she was just crushed. But by the time I was done, so many nurses and even some family members showed up, her area was packed with people and activity.

I’m pretty sure I would have just been in the way, so I left.

I couldn’t help thinking, if my few words would had made any difference for her. Or if I wanted to say something, maybe subconsciously, just to make myself feel better about her situation.

Our time will come for all of us at some point. I’m grateful that I’ve found some peace within myself. It was just another reminder for me to be grateful for what I have and the health I have, whatever level that is.

My blood running through a machine, filtering out the blood stem cells.
A snapshot of my specs, I guess I better sit back down, my return is low 😅.
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The Elephant in the Room

Jothi

From the moment you were conceived, it was 100% guaranteed. Unavoidable, no dodging it. Whether you eat health food or junk food. Whether you have perfect health or have cancer. Whether you have all the money in the world or are dirt poor. It’s the elephant in the room, that people so desperately try to avoid. You are going to die.

Honestly, it’s not a concept that I thought about a lot. I had just completed my roaring thirties. Everything seemed to be going, more or less, according to my plans. I had my goals and I was on a straight path to achieve them.

All of a sudden, I had my “you have cancer” moment and the eventuality was there, looking me in the face. “Holy crap, would you look at that”. It was always there, but the possibility of it was so far off, it was easy to ignore.

You almost have to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Someone just died right now, as I typed these words. People die every day. People live every day. A 25 year old in the prime of life, perfectly healthy, who wasn’t supposed to die, died in an accident. Someone, with stage four cancer, who was supposed to die, got better and is still living.

The longer I’ve thought about it and believe me, I’ve given it some thought, I’ve come to this conclusion. When it’s your time, it’s your time. Not that I don’t believe in free will and willpower to change your perceived destiny. Cancer, treatment for cancer, accidents, pneumonia and whatever you can imagine, isn’t going to take me until it’s my time.

I think fear, hits the nail on the head for most people, when it comes to death. I do personally believe in a soul, an afterlife and reincarnation, so that is somewhat helpful in removing fear. Fear of the unknown. I don’t think I fear death, but honestly, that’s easy to say right now. I will see when the time eventually comes, how true that is. Talk is cheap. Nothing like things coming to a head, to test your beliefs and resolve.

Personally, it was interesting for me. My first thoughts after hearing those famous three words from the doctor, weren’t about my well-being. They immediately went to the well-being of my wife and my young children. It was a tremendous weight on me. Would they be alright without me? It felt like I was the Titan, Atlas, holding up the weight of heaven and earth on my back. It was crushing me.

It took me, probably 2 years to set down my gigantic boulder. I realized, no matter how much I wanted, at a certain point, it’s out of my hands. I can put in my best effort, my best foot forward, but at some point, it will just be my time. Death was standing there, looking me in the face, we smiled, and I said “I’ll see you when I’m ready, I have more to do right now”.

I had just come to peace with it.

Life will go on after I pass. My wife’s and children’s lives will go on after I pass. I don’t know if that will happen in a year or fifty, but it will happen. At some point they will pass. Life (and death) will go on.

I have new goals and things that I want to do with my life, before I’m done. I’m curious if I’ll achieve them before I move on.

I’m going to keep living while I’m living. I find the previous sentence an interesting one. Only because, a lot of people don’t actually live life, they just exist. Waiting for something to happen to them, waiting to die? I don’t know, I suppose it’s different for everyone. I like to do a check on myself from time to time. Am I living or just existing?

It’s interesting listening to people with near-death experiences. I think I’ve only heard stories about how warm, loving and life changing for the positive they were.

I don’t know Anita Moorjani personally, but from what I do know of her, I am a fan. She was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and did not elect treatment and ended up near death and in a coma a few years later, dying from lymphoma. She had a near death experience and lost her fear and ended up getting better. Quite an interesting story. She talks about her experience in a Ted Talk if you’re interested.

If you don’t believe in God or an afterlife, here is a scientific viewpoint. Albert Einstein said with his first law of thermodynamics, “Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another”. You are made up of energy, enough to power a 20 watt lightbulb at any given time. When you die, that energy can’t cease to exist. Where does it go?

In my small world, I can look around me and see people struggling with fear and their own mortality. I advise people to let go. Not to let go of living, but of the fear. Swimming upstream is exhausting, sometimes you just have to go with the flow of life. An orange is still going to be an orange, no matter how much you want it to be an apple.

It’s going to happen no matter what, so stop worrying about it. You are meant to live and you are meant to die. When you are doing what you are meant to do, that should bring some comfort.

I encourage you to think on it. Think about your life and death, and try to find some peace within yourself. After all, death could be the greatest adventure you don’t know about?