Cancer!!

I already knew. There was some reason besides hemorrhoids for my pain and blood in stool, etc. I went to my newest doctor today. When the doctor AND his nurse AND a young guy I didn’t meet before all came into the room together. The old doctor said, “I don’t like you.” He said he thought I was only bringing him a hemorrhoid problem but I brought a bad thing. Today, May 23, 2014....exactly two months past my 56th birthday, I was told that I have cancer.

At the moment he says I have cancer just inside my rectum...rectal cancer. This explains, he said, why I have had such continual pain just from sitting. No kidding. It also explains to me much of why it is that I have lost about 35 pounds in the past three months or so. It was because I was eating much less but THAT was because I was afraid to eat because of the pain that would follow in the bathroom and, no doubt the cancer has affected my appetite.

I have a PET scan scheduled for next Wednesday to determine if it has spread anywhere else. If not, he says, I may only have to have some radiation.

I know for sure that at lest one, maybe more, of my friends has cancer. It seems I have joined your club even if mine is different from yours.

At this point I don’t know how much or what kind of future I have. I have told Melinda that she HAS to get herself acquainted with driving this car. I say the following, not because I am interested in any sort of debate or argument, but only to inform any of my friends who may not know, that I am not afraid of death. I know with absolute certainty what death is and is not. I know, for several reasons, especially the wealth of neuroscience on the matter of the brain producing consciousness, that it is merely the state of non-existence that “I” was in before biological processes brought me into existence. If this were my “belief” or opinion I would say so. I do fear pain though, that which might well come before the dead part. I can only hope that I can escape most of it.

“While you are asleep you are dead; and whether you stay dead an hour or a billion years the time to you is the same.” - Mark Twain's Notebook, 1896 He is, er, was correct.

I want to tell all my friends that I truly love and appreciate you.

That Weird Guy

addendum: and as if THAT were not enough....doc also mentioned colostomy bag, which I had thought of to0, but I don't know about that yet.