Diagnosis

It’s true, whenever I get sick, I anticipate the worst. Last Sunday night I got the stomach flu, or something along those lines, with the usual symptoms that keep you in the bathroom for quite a while. The recovery period lasted about 48 hours during which I ate nothing, and gladly dropped a few pounds (but not worth it). As I took to my bed with heating pad in tow, this down time allowed for reflection as to what was really underlying my malady. 

My dear friend’s husband has stage four pancreatic cancer. Her family and closest friends have rallied to support her as she has made a valiant effort to honor his request to be at home for the duration. As an observer of his devastating decline and occasional participant in his care, I found it hard to believe by Monday morning that I too had not contracted pancreatic cancer. After all, did I not have similar symptoms as to what he originally experienced before his diagnosis? 

Several other possibilities occurred to me as I lay in bed, sending Tim out to get ingredients to meet my curative requirements, including buying and grating fresh ginger for tea. It could be appendicitis, a kidney stone, even a heart attack. I looked up every one. Time to rule out, or in, the most dire outcomes.

On Monday night, although certain death was imminent, I summoned the energy to watch the HBO special “Everything is Copy” about Nora Ephron’s life. If I was too sick to work on my own book, I could at least learn about an admired author and her process. Ms. Ephron passed away in 2012 of acute myeloid leukemia, the same rotten cancer that took my sister-in-law Patty’s life.  So naturally I wanted to watch, also because Ms. Ephron has been known to have keen observations about life and love, and as it turned out, death. 

 

Her version of AML gave her time to consider how she wanted to cope, and her decision was to keep her illness private, something I most likely will not do. (My recent end-of-life trauma was communicated to anyone who would listen.) The program did inspire me to consider something she did in her final years. She made a list of things she would miss, and those she would not. In discussing this with a friend, I said that this seemed a useful exercise as it makes you appreciate what you have and to be grateful. He said, rather astutely I thought, it’s also a way to remove the clutter from your life. If you identify those things that you will miss, your focus can change and those items will rise to the top and hopefully you can drop the least important ones completely.  

Since it was becoming clear that my days were numbered, I started my own list and found many of the things I would and would not miss are the same, or at least similar to Ms. Ephron’s. I hope to hold this list in my mind always so that my remaining years will be clutter free. What I won’t miss is a short list, so I’ll get that out of the way: the news. 

Now, without mentioning the obvious people who have stayed with me for the long haul and hopefully know that without them my life would be meaningless, here are some of the things I will miss:

• My house
• Max and Rusty
• A fire
• Strawberry rhubarb pie
• Bed
• Aspetuck Reservoir
• Pizza
• Walking in the woods
• Barley wine beer
• The Joel Barlow track
• Getting the Christmas tree

Hmm, Ms. Ephron was right.  Everything is copy.