Whelp, I’ve got cancer. It’s the second time I’ve had it. About 9 months ago I was told the docs would treat me but I probably wouldn’t make it.
Its been a hell of a time.
It’s a blood cancer so at the moment I look normal from the outside. I’ve changed a lot though, in the sense that I’ve become more me.
I don’t give a shit about anything except for spending time with people I like. I especially don’t care about money or work.
It (death) is taking a lot longer to happen than I thought it would.
The real trip has been seeing other people’s reactions; I accepted it early on but other people have had very different reactions. Mostly I think they just don’t know how to react, or they don’t think it will actually happen, or both.
I don’t think the human mind is capable of understanding the concepts of “eternity” or “oblivion” very well.
I do believe in God but it’s still scary.
Its the everyday things that catch you off guard; the other day I was wondering when the next soccer world cup would be, then I realised I probably wouldn’t be around for it.
I think when I finally die it will be a relief from all the physical pain.
I had to watch my dad’s being and body melt over 12 months dying of Glioblastoma.
And people just don’t get that.
4 years ago next week marks my mom’s diagnosis and the 10 months that followed. Watching your loved ones go slowly insane and become unable to speak and move in such a short time (she was mid 50s) when they should be healthy changes you. Everything I look at, everything I think about is now looked at under a different lense. And given my age, there just aren’t a lot of people around me who have any idea what it’s like and assume it’s just handling the pain.
Like… no. I’m different now.
Luckily I have a good therapist.
Who lost his sister to it.
Doesn’t help that my brother also died of a heroin overdose (just 5 months before diagnosis ).
My mom moved away after Dad died to live near her sister… Which I understand. But dam I feel abandoned.
Also sometime in between I got a fibromyalgia diagnosis. So in also grieving my old life/body. Bleh. Hugs 🫂
Damn you’ve had it hard. I hope you find some joy in life, you deserve it.
Sorry you had to go through that. I hope you’ve been able to use that experience to make the most of life.
I often think that as my body wastes away it will be a lot harder for the people around me than it will be for me.
They will have to watch it happen knowing they can’t help, whereas once I’m gone I won’t have to deal with the sadness and aftermath.
Sorry you had to deal with that.
Today is the shitty anniversary of my brothers death from AML. He was sick for 3 years and its was good at times and then really hard.
He was already one of the most philosophical people I knew when he got sick. Social Security allowed him to have the time with his friends and family when he was deemed unable to work which really helped the whole process.
We got to drive across the US for the eclipse which happened during his last spell of better health (it was an upswing after a marrow transplant that ultimately failed). I’m taking my 6 year old and wife wherever we need to too see the eclipse this April. So I can show my son what his uncle and I saw right before he was born.
Damn bro thats rough af. Glad ur spending time with the people u love and hopfully u can set them up for success.
I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this, it sounds like you have as great an attitude about it as possible though. If it’s too personal don’t feel obligated to answer, but I’m genuinely curious how you accepted it? Since my dad passed away several years ago I’ve become intensely afraid of dying. Like to the point I know I need to talk to someone about it. But I’d be really interested to hear your thoughts/ journey there
It’s a tough question to answer, as it has been a very long and winding road, as they say.
I’ve had chronic health issues for most of my life, so thinking about dying isn’t new. Plus I’ve even had cancer before, so I really thought about it then.
I think time is the main factor. Just sitting with the idea, being comfortable with it, not struggling against it, recognising that it happens to us all, some sooner than others, and that’s OK.
When I feel upset or anxious about death I don’t push it away, I focus on my breathing and tell myself that not only is it totally OK to feel this way, but it’s completely normal. I imagine that I’m swimming in the ocean and a wave has lifted me up. I don’t need to do anything, just relax and the wave will pass through me, and I’ll still be there afterwards.
Early on into my relapse I got high (weed) and my brain took me to this place where I imagined life without me in it. Kind of like a ghost, watching everyone react before slowly getting back into their daily lives. I cried a lot that night but since then I’ve been a lot calmer and accepting of it.
Yes, people will be sad but they will ultimately be OK. Everything will continue as normal once I’m gone, and that’s a good thing.
Fucking hell dude, I wish you all the best there is and to enjoy the ride to the fullest while it lasts, which I hope it does for a long time.
Thanks :)
Oh, I just had a near death experience! Ran a stop and almost got hit by a bus; would’ve hit me right on the ribs! I’ve had another crash before where a powerline pole fell over my car, right next to my head.
My experience? Life didn’t flash before my eyes. I was just very scared at the moment, and was anxious and upset for a few hours after. It’s definitely going to change how carefully I drive moving forward.
Otherwise, I’ve seen a lot of patients sick, dying or terminally ill, working as a physician. It definitely affected the way I see life; I try to care less about what other people think I should be doing and instead act in a way I think is right. I am happy and satisfied that if I die I will be thought of fondly by most people I’ve interacted with.
Life is random, and meanness and cold. No matter who you are, death comes with no bias. You have to make life worth living in the now because I have seen the regret and pain in the eyes of the dying far too many times. Also be nice to your kids.
This one is macabre.
I am a homestead farmer so I have hundreds of animals most of which I raised like a baby, they all have names, each was hand fed and raised from birth by my wife and I. We are deeply attached to each of them and it is like losing a child when one dies.
Firstly I can tell you that you can get used to your children dying, you can repress it. I’ve spent many hours digging graves over time made all the more painful by the fact that often times I would stay with these animals through the entirety of their ill health. Often they would sleep in the room with my wife and I or even in the bed if the right type. When you read something like charolettes Web or what have you and see some old farmer indifferent to their child who wants to keep their animal friend. That is not from some kind of “depersonisation” or dissonance or even indifference to this animal, it is knowing acceptance from a lifetime of pain watching their friends and children die and being forced to bury them.
I can tell you that if you need cpr I’m your man, I’ve had alot of practice. There’s lots of things cpr won’t fix but that had never stopped me from trying. Maybe just maybe if they can have that extra breath or beat they can beat whatever ails them so I try. Here’s the fucked part; there is a moment where when something dies, it’s easier to see in mammals, there is a moment just before the death rattle, you can see the thing is dead and if you have seen this before you will know what I’m talking about. At this moment of gasping you can “catch” them, like you are catching their escaping souls with your lungs and blowing it back into their mouths. Their eyes get glazed and they do this straining wail and tilt their head, all things in the same way, that is your moment to bring them back and you can see it instantly as their eyes come back to focus and they usually scream in some way.
I’ve only ever saved 2 in this fashion and I have a large grave yard.
There is no God.
I was in the hospital in January following a heart attack.
I woke up one morning and was on my phone when the nurse came in.
“Were you asleep about an hour ago?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Your heart stopped for 8 seconds.”
“. . . Uh, thanks? I guess? I’m not sure what you want me to do with that information.”
Never knew it happened.
And they’re just checking on you an hour later?! Wow thanks.
A dead body doesn’t look real. The stillness and one’s denial mechanisms combine to make it look like a mannequin.
Death by massive head injury is not a bad way to go. I remember a sunny morning, heading to the bank a mile from my house to deposit my paycheck, and riding towards work. I merged behind a Jeep Grand Cherokee to pass an idiot that was double parked in the bike lane. It was down hill and I easily topped 35 mph to match speed with the Jeep. That is the last thing I remember. Like it was all totally blank and even worse than anesthesia level blackout.
Three hours later, someone pulled a large piece of glass out of my face that severed major nerve in my lip. That woke me up.
That is how I want to go; a pretty day on a nice bike ride, feeling fantastic, then totally blank.
In reality, I was lucid the whole time apparently, or so I was told. I honestly do not have ANY memory of it whatsoever. If you know of anyone that dies tragically with a major head injury, I want you to think of me. Even if they appeared conscious or aware but disoriented, that wasn’t the last thing they felt or remembered, I promise, I’ve lived it; only barely survived it. I still don’t remember a thing.
Consciousness and memory both require communication between different regions of the brain. It’s entirely possible that you were "alert’ amd responsive while still suffering a brain injury that prevented you from remembering any part of it.
Anesthesia scares me for similar reasons. It halts the communication between different brain regions, and we know that people have no memories while under general Anesthesia, but are they lying there unable to move, suffering extreme agony throughout the surgery, and just unable to remember it afterwards?
I haven’t personally died yet, so no first person report. My dad died suddenly when I was 16, gently it seems; and my stepson by suicide, not at all gently. From these experiences I will say PLEASE try not to die before your parents do. It’s sad to lose a parent but we all know it will happen. We recover. Losing a kid? No, I don’t think anyone really recovers from that.
They don’t tend to recover but they do often move forward. It can be quite inspiring but I keep that to myself.
letting your hamster ball roll down the stairs isn’t good
My experiences with death has cured me of any atheist delusions. There’s a damn good reason they say, “there are no atheists in foxholes.” It’s not about whether you believe this or that to be real or not real - that is irrelevant - it’s about what matters in those horrible moments people experience true mortality before they go. It’s not pretty like they pretend it to be in the movies, and armchair philosophizing doesn’t mean squat to people then.
People react differently, sure, some will call out to some higher power even if they don’t believe, if these call-outs are part of their vocabulary. I certainly say “oh god” a lot, even though I’m a very vocal anti-theist and strong atheist. But they do not necessarily beg a higher power to safe them because they actually believe, but because in distress reaching for help is human instinct and our theism infused culture conditions us towards “god” in such situations.
I’m not proud of it, but in distress I did call to god for help. But hey, I was 11 years old and just had my fingers crushed to paste, I was in shock and not thinking and at no point did I actually expect help.
None of that is belief, as soon as peoole regain their senses, they discard it. Just like wounded soldiers on a battlefield don’t actually expect their mothers to show up and safe them, yet still call out to them.
Belief needs conviction and irrational panic behavior tells us nothing about conviction but a lot about ingrained childhood experience and familial as well as societal indoctrination.
I’m not proud of it, but in distress I did call to god for help
Doesn’t sound like the actions of a “strong atheist” (if such a thing can or should even exist) to me… just sounds like bog-standard human behavior.
But hey, I was 11 years old
But you’ve left all of that behind, right? You’re a big, strong, rational main character now that will never be put into such a vulnerable situation ever again, right?
None of that is belief,
Perhaps it is and perhaps it isn’t - and that probably isn’t even relevant.
as soon as peoole regain their senses, they discard it.
When I cease to be hungry I stop eating - that doesn’t mean I reject the concept of food.
Just like wounded soldiers on a battlefield don’t actually expect their mothers to show up and safe them, yet still call out to them.
In other words… atheist reasoning only works as long as everything is comfortable and non-threatening? It offers absolutely nothing to those in distress?
I’d say that’s a big, gaping hole in said reasoning.
Belief needs conviction
So does non-belief, apparently. At least, that’s what the narratives I hear from atheists seem to suggest.
You want a drink with all that straw, man?
Depends… is it big enough to fill the giant gap in atheist reasoning?
No offense, but “No atheists in foxholes” ONLY makes sense to religious people… why would an atheist pray to something he/she doesn’t believe in? Do Christians pray to Muhammad or one of the thousands of other religions in foxholes? Of course not, because they don’t believe in them… that’s the point. If someone is doing that, they’re at best agnostic.
And for the record, I’ve had one of my daughters literally die in my arms, it’s a terrible experience, but it didn’t convert me to some religion to try and make sense out of.
No offense,
None taken.
but “No atheists in foxholes” ONLY makes sense to religious people
I’m afraid not. I’m not religious at all - and it makes perfect sense to me.
why would an atheist pray to something he/she doesn’t believe in?
It’s very easy to convince yourself that you’ve chosen to believe this or that when life is comfortable. It’s peak individualism - and such delusions fall apart very fast when the trauma starts piling on. You don’t have to believe me - believe the people who wrote the CIA’s torture manuals.
It’s called “regression” - if you were spoon-fed a certain religion as a child you will “regress” to that under extreme duress (amongst other, even worse, things). That’s why they say, “there are no atheists in foxholes.”
So you’re saying you’d pray to things you don’t believe in when confronted with something traumatic?
This is all going straight over your head, isn’t it?
I guess it must be “going over my head”, because it makes no sense to me to pray to something that isn’t there, unless you at least think there’s at least a tiny chance there is… aka agnostic.
I also wouldn’t pray to my toaster unless I thought at least there was the slightest chance it could hear me.
because it makes no sense
So everything in your life “makes sense”? How did you accomplish that?
I also wouldn’t pray to my toaster unless
I also wouldn’t recommend praying to anything that comes with an on/off switch… though I am undecided about threatening them with banishment to a landfill.
I never said everything in life makes sense, just that praying to something you don’t think is real doesn’t.
Obviously you believe in some form of higher power, so it makes sense that you would pray to it. But you wouldn’t pray to something you don’t at least think has a chance of existing, why would you think an atheist would?
if you were spoon-fed a certain religion as a child
And if you weren’t? Probably hard to believe for most Americans but atheism isn’t an invention of the current generations.
but atheism isn’t an invention of the current generations.
Of course it isn’t.
And if you weren’t?
That’s actually a very difficult thing… even someone who was raised in a non-religious home would be exposed to religion (and things worse than religion under our current circumstances) through social osmosis. Soooo… you’d have to find someone that was raised in a society that can be called atheist with a straight face.
Wow this is a stupid take. I was spoon fed Christianity, now I’m agnostic. I’ve experienced plenty of traumatic things and I haven’t found myself praying to God in any of those.
Where did you get this is bs?
Where did you get this
I guess you missed this part?
You don’t have to believe me - believe the people who wrote the CIA’s torture manuals.
I suppose you were too busy convincing yourself that losing at video games qualify as “traumatic…”
You don’t know me at all, dipshit. Congratulations for being the most insufferable Lemmy user I’ve ran into so far. I feel sorry for people that know you. That has to be traumatic.
You don’t know me at all
I agree. And I’d prefer to keep it that way.
most insufferable
Considering how easy it was to trigger you I find your claim of any kind of actual life experience quite dubious.
You make an awful lot of assumptions. Keep being a basement keyboard warrior, loser.
