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Elaine

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Posts posted by Elaine

    my birthday

    in GRIEF

    Posted

    Curtis

    I feel bad that I let your birthday slip my mind. It seems that my cancer just seems at times to occupy my whole thoughts. Just another thing about all this I don't like. Anyway, I hope you were able to enjoy the day without too much sadness and thoughts of your loss.

    love

    elaine

    WHEW

    in NSCLC GROUP

    Posted

    I dont think you are pathetic, I think you are human. And dont you feel a lot better now? I know I feel better knowing it's probably nothing but after effects of surgery.

    love

    elaine

    Our friend, Bob is so discouraged..

    in NSCLC GROUP

    Posted

    I've been thinking about "denial" and the fact that it sometimes takes so long to get a dX or a lot of persistence to get a dx. I am trying to put the best light on the situation in order to ease my own feelings of anger over a few "missed opportunities" at being Dxed sooner. Maybe Drs don't want to think the worst. Maybe they want to think it's something simple like a deviated septum. Maybe they don't want to find something bad. I know it's their job and I am not excusing them, but I am just trying to understand why these things happen. It's awful tiring to be angry about something that can't be changed. But anyway, persist. I know I wanted very much to believe it was "probably nothing"-- a little arthritis in the knees.

    elaine

    Does God Make Mistakes?

    in HOPE

    Posted

    Agreed, Don, but I did say, "by extension." --I guess it's why they call it the "Great Mystery." Though sometimes in the face of certain beauty, it has all seemed so simple... and then as soon as I have tried to grasp the simplicity in order to put thought or word to it, it disappears...

    elaine

    Does God Make Mistakes?

    in HOPE

    Posted

    Well I must agree with Cat. It's not up to me to or any human to "judge God"--but I also know that in the Bible God does question his own judgement and that God seems to go through dramatic "personality" changes.

    elaine

    Dumb Question about response rates

    in GENERAL

    Posted

    Well I think that JaneC is right, but I got myself confused last night reading something. But it has been my understanding that if a chemo has a response rate of 13 per cent (which is about average for most chemos I have read about) that means only 13 out of 100 will have ANY benefit from the drug??? Oh John, pls let us know what the right answer is.

    thanks

    elaine

    Me On Steroids.....

    in CAREGIVER RESOURCE CENTER

    Posted

    Pamela

    I am so disheartened by what you wrote, angry at the lack of care shown your father and by extension so many other lc sufferers. And I feel a great deal of compassion for your dad.

    I kind of know what you mean. Everything "wrong" with us is attributed to "the disease" according to too many Drs. They may be right, but they just seem to leave it at that--nothing offered that might alleviate without causing more harm. To me it sounds, if not criminal, then surely immoral for your dad to be on that high of dose for that long. Yes I recognize that steroids will reduce brain swelling so that a person might live while undergoing WBR or other brain treatment, but perhaps more attention needs to be paid to the actual dose needed. I know they don't often tell a person a bout side effects. And if you ask, they give a funny look like you are questioning their very soul.

    Sorry for the rant. I just feel so sad for your dad.

    Does God Make Mistakes?

    in HOPE

    Posted

    I agree: there is no logic to it. Belief in God is just that, a belief I have, a strong sense of GOd being there, somewhere, in me, outside of me: God is. I can't prove it, but I know it. There is no book or anyone's talk that can convince me of what I have felt to be true. But for me Peggy, though I love the Bible as I do other books, I don't find all my answers there either. I know the verse, "Seek and ye shall find." I don't know why I keep finding something different than what others find. Surely I have sought and seek. I am not saying you are wrong or I am right. I am just saying that I hope God understands my search.

    We agreed once that Jesus was a person. I believe he was. I believe he is a person who shows me how I ought to live and how I ought to face suffering of all kinds, not just death. I believe most readily that through Jesus I can understand this life better and that through him I can come to find God. One of the most powerful quotes in the Bible comes when Jesus cries out, "My God, my God, why hast though forsaken me." I cried everytime I heard this BEFORE my DX. If that line doesn't prove the humaness of Jesus, then what does? Perhaps my metaphorical belief will grant me God's grace, because what I keep coming to is this:

    Through Jesus, I learned to seek forgiveness, I learned right from wrong, I learned many things, too numerous to mention. I also learned that I am but one of a million kinds of people or other living things that will be a part of the kingdom of God. Some of them may have never heard of the word Jesus.

    Turning Point

    in GENERAL

    Posted

    Okay, here is one of the poems: I am sobbing, but that's just me, I hope:

    What The Doctor Said

    He said it doesn't look good

    he said it looks bad in fact real bad

    he said I counted thirty-two of them on one lung before

    I quit counting them

    I said I'm glad I wouldn't want to know

    about any more being there than that

    he said are you a religious man do you kneel down

    in forest groves and let yourself ask for help

    when you come to a waterfall

    mist blowing against your face and arms

    do you stop and ask for understanding at those moments

    I said not yet but I intend to start today

    he said I'm real sorry he said

    I wish I had some other kind of news to give you

    I said Amen and he said something else

    I didn't catch and not knowing what else to do

    and not wanting him to have to repeat it

    and me to have to fully digest it

    I just looked at him

    for a minute and he looked back it was then

    I jumped up and shook hands with this man who'd just given me

    something no one else on earth had ever given me

    I may have even thanked him habit being so strong

    Ok, it's probably too sad for most people. But it really struck me because I also remember thanking the Dr and also saying "I'm sorry" like I was trying to comfort HIM for having to tell me.... Believe me, I showed ten times the compassion and politeness toward him than he did toward me. I still can't get over that....

    Ok I am feeling guilty, so I am posting another poem that seems more hopeful. Remember he was stage IV. Anyway, this poem reminds me of DeanCarl and a few moments I have had, too.

    Happiness

    So early it's still almost dark out.

    I'm near the window with coffee,

    and the usual early morning stuff

    that passes for thought.

    When I see the boy and his friend

    walking up the road

    to deliver the newspaper.

    They wear caps and sweaters,

    and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.

    They are so happy

    they aren't saying anything, these boys.

    I think if they could, they would take

    each other's arm.

    It's early in the morning,

    and they are doing this thing together.

    They come on, slowly.

    The sky is taking on light,

    though the moon still hangs pale over the water.

    Such beauty that for a minute

    death and ambition, even love,

    doesn't enter into this.

    Happiness. It comes on

    unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,

    any early morning talk about it.

    Does God Make Mistakes?

    in HOPE

    Posted

    But if God created us, he also created free will, as Don says, he gave it to us as a gift. And if free will allows evil in as Don says, then by extension, God created evil. So if everything God created is good, then is evil good??????

    Turning Point

    in GENERAL

    Posted

    Peggy

    It's not that I think the poem is bad, I don't (though I am a ceative writing teacher and I would probably critique it heavily if it were submitted in a higher level course, ha--and will admit that there are some excellent lines)--it's just that the poem does not speak to me, a person with cancer. I dont know why but it seems to me like someone who is writing about what it seems like it would be like to have cancer. Even though it may well have been written by someone with cancer--maybe not stage IV cancer, it doesn't, to me, reach the depth of feelings that I have. Neither the good nor the bad.

    I don't know why it doesn't speak to me. Maybe I expect too much from poetry. If someone gave it to me to read, I would be kinda mad and feel like "Here we go again--this is what is supposed to feel like...." I dont doubt for one moment that what your husband is experiencing is VASTLY different from what I am experiencing or anyone. I guess if a perfect world, we would each write our own poem of having cancer. But it, too, would change from day to day and maybe hour to hour.

    I guess have him read it if he is the kind of person who likes to discuss things, but if not, maybe not.

    On the other hand, it may be that he needs something to help him to open up and this might be it. Has this kind of thing worked in the past as to other things in life?

    I am going to suggest to you a book of poems by Raymond Carver who died of lung cancer in his mid-fifities. Raymond Carver was a working man who wrote on the sly until his late thirties when he became the most influential American writer of the last half of the 20th century. He wrote about cancer in a way that to me speaks volumes--from his heart to mine, from his gut to mine. I will look tonight and find a poem of his and post it to see what you think.

    elaine

    Does God Make Mistakes?

    in HOPE

    Posted

    Though free will sometimes seems like a bad idea, explore its opposite: puppetlike people, all the same. We have enough of that now in the world. People who only dare say or do or perhaps even think what they know to be safe. What kind of science would there be in a world like that. What kind of social justice? What kind of democracy? Sure our science is lacking, now. Sure we are nowhere near socioeconomic equity, and certainly our democracy is not perfect, but without free will I shudder to think of how this world might be. Perhaps no crime, perhaps no stupid human behavior, but I am not convinced that no free will would create a paradise. OK if it is a paradise perhaps it would be boring. But then again, perhaps I am looking at this only through my imperfect human eyes. See how easily I can confuse even myself. Which brings me to the question, just what IS heaven? The Bible really doesnt say.

    Since I already posted that I don't believe hell is a literal place, I must say I doubt heaven to be literal either. Although the thought of it being so pleases me and gives me hope--because I can only think in human terms as to what would please me--see my loved ones and wait for my other loved ones to have a kind of life like I have now only more perfect. I dont think that possible or probable.

    And since I have only human ways of relating things, I guess I believe life after death to be some kind of existence so very unlike what we now deem existence and so very much beyond what I can imagine it to be. When I think of it, I just come up empty-headed. I don't know. I just don't know.

    elaine

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