$?$*&*! cancer

[Snake_Plissken]

Not only my mother-in-law probably won't be here within a year because of it but now this happens:

I own a cult video store. I'm at the counter and I see a middle-aged gentleman enter accompagnied with a young asian lady. Her face is familiar but I don't aknowledge it and greet them. Right off they are drawn towards a Chinese golden medallion (a good luck omen of a kind) hanging on my wall, right next to my Turkish Eye (another good luck trinket). I am VERY puzzled by this but I don't say anything. I hear the man asking her : "did he give this to them?". Ok, NOW I'm very very puzzled. He then proceeds to ask me: "do you have a 'John Smith' in your membership database?" (I'm changing the name), I recall saying "ha, well maybe" and I was prepared to say "but I cannot reveal personal info or even confirm if someone is a member" than he added : "he was my son". Right there I saw the whole picture.

His son happened to be a very good client here and I hadn't seen him in a while. But I'll always remember the last time I saw him. He came in to return his DVDs and he looked anxious. He had a huge piece of cloth covering his neck and I asked him "woa! how are you??" and he replied a short, clipped "not well". I then asked "what happened?", to which he just replied "cancer" than he left. He had surgery in his throat and he couldn't speak much. That was a couple of months ago. He died a couple of days before Xmas.That asian girl was his Japanese girlfriend. His father told me that he fought his pain because she was in Japan and he wanted to see her one last time; but she arrived 3 days after he died.

He was the one who gave us that Chinese medallion for us to hang on the wall. He loved our store, it was sort of one of his favorite spots. He really loved Asian cinema and he liked to discuss it with my associate who is very knowledgeable about it. That is why both his dad and his GF came and visited. Once they left they even took pictures outside.

[AslanC]

I am at a loss for words Snake...

I feel you though.

[Don Mappin]

That just sucks all-around. Sorry to hear that.

Out of curiosity, did you give them the medallion? (Idly wondering if it had any personal significance since they recognized it.)

[strict31]

I lost both of my parents to cancer. My mom passed last year; my dad passed less than a year prior to that. I pretty much dropped everything to take care of them as much as I could; they were both sick for a long time. I'm sure there are worse things in life, but seeing a loved one laid out cold and still and utterly unliving on a hospital bed twice in under a year is close to the top of the list. Still rather bitter about it because I keep getting little reminders. I just had to file a tax return for my mom (luckily she didn't owe anything, but it was so damned complex to wade through), and an old friend of my father's just called, completely unaware he had passed. I had to explain it all, all over again. Every so often, one of my mom's former students will call up (she was an art teacher) and they are surprised and shocked to hear she's passed. Brings back a bit of the hurt each time this happens.

I wish I could have found all their numbers and informed them at once, but that was an impossibility at the time. I'd like to think that I'm moving on and doing well, but I don't know if that's true or not.

I'm currently at odds with my girlfriend's younger brother; they lost their mom when she was 13 or so, and he's a few years younger than she is. While they're both adults right now, he's never recovered. This is damned near 20 years after the fact, mind you. I see so much of myself in his behavior that it scares me. The guy has lost all of his social skills and just doesn't care about much of anything. As such, he comes across as an ass. I wonder if this is happening to me too.

Hell, you know one thing about all of this? I can't watch scary movies anymore! I don't mean silly shite like Freddy vs Jason. I mean really freaky stuff like Ringu (or the Ring) I'd like to check out some of these japanese horror flicks that look really spooky, but damn, i get enough bad dreams these days!

So, yeah, i feel your pain, dude. totally.

If your mother in law has lung cancer, she might want to try out a drug called iressa. You didn't specify the type of cancer, so i don't know if that suggestion is of any use. Apparently, it has recently been determined that iressa can offer an alternative to surgery and/or chemo, but only if you're genetically predisposed to the effects of the drug.

Additionally, there are alternate treatments out there and support groups that are always available. if you haven't checked these options out, you might find them useful.


Strictly Speaking

[ReptileJK]

My heart goes out to all of them and any of you who have had loved ones die of cancer. Such a terrible thing to happen. Sometimes, when I think my life isn't going exactly how I want it to, I try and remember those who are REALLY suffering. Makes everything else seem trivial (including worrying about whether or not Decipher will support a silly RPG).

Reptile

[RaconteurX]

Having just marked the twelfth anniversary of my mother's death from cancer, I can tell you that the pain of loss lingers for a long, long time. Still, it is a reminder of the good as well as the bad, as it is the recollection of good things that engenders sadness. The worst part is when sadness heaps upon itself, such as the way my grandmother gradually lost her will to live in the two years following my mother's death or how my mother's sister suddenly died a week to the day before the above-mentioned anniversary.

I am still angry with my father for his behavior with regards to my aunt's death. Despite the fact that she made daily visits, after my mother died, to bring him food and do his housework, he refused to delay his vacation by even a day to attend her funeral. He did not even inform my siblings and I about our aunt's death... it was a fluke that we discovered it in time to attend.

Snake, strict... don't be afraid to let it hurt, to let yourself feel, because the only thing bottling it up will accomplish is turning you into a prime candidate for psychotherapy. Mourning is something everyone needs to do, and for differing lengths of time. Give your grief free rein, when it needs to be let out. You can haul it back in when it has run its course.

[Phantom]

Wow, I'm at a loss for words. It's too bad he and his GF weren't able to have a little more time together before the end.

It was good of them to stop by to let you know.

[tmutant]

I lost one of my best friends in high school to leukemia. He had been in remission for about five years, then it came back agressively, and he was gone in six months. I'm with you, man.

[Snake_Plissken]

I told the story to my GF last night and the first thing she asked was "did you give them the medallion?" I'm starting to think that I should have offered it to them. I don't think however they wanted it back, I think they were just curious about it. If they would have asked for it I would have given it to them easily. The gentleman did ask the Japanese girl if she wanted to rent anything and I said they could pick whatever they wanted (even though his son's account was technically invalid). I did not tell them but I would not have charged them anything. Well they declned but the gentleman say he may visit again.

Incidentally my GF gave me news about her mom last light. The story is she fought a strain of throat cancer for the last 6 years and last fall she got a bone marrow transplant, which took succesfully. She was able after Xmas to return home and she was rapidly improving, but after 2-3 months her health began to deteriorate again. They just find out that, probably to years or chimiotherapy, her livers aren't working and she might need dyalisis on a regular basis. The news last night was that she is also suffering from anemia, which is related (I think) to her liver problems. The issue was if she wanted to keep on fighting. She said in the past several times that she was fighting to stay alive for her daughter and son, but if she wer alone she'd let herself go. Now she told my GF that she wants to keep fighting. We thought after Xmas that FINALLY she would be able to go through an uneventful recovery only to go back to more tests, more operations, more hospital time, etc.