Mabon and the Sukkot Moon
Tuesday gratefuls: Dr. Buphati. Cancer genetics. More treatment options. Do they make sense? Even exercise? Why I hope to die at 75. Encourage any of you to read this, tell me what you think. Jennie’s Dead. Further into reading, some revising. The American Immortal. Great Sol. Dependable. Brilliant. Warm and caring. A good parent. Mother Earth. Tempestuous and nurturing. An exciting parent. Those of us their children. Living as their creations. Aware of them and grateful for the gift of life and consciousness. Evolution, their primary parenting technique, has stood the test. And will continue too. Did you really think we were the end of evolution? It’s highest and best? Nope.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Medical care
Kavannah: Yirah
One brief shining: Seen a lot of rooms like this over the last few years, first with my cancer, then with Kate, now with my cancer yet and still; this one belongs to Dr. Buphati, a medical oncologist, young, well respected, thoughtful, objective, who spoke with me yesterday not half a block from the 10th floor of Swedish Hospital where Kate died, telling me it’s not time to have dying conversations yet, so many treatment options still exist, no matter my PSA which he drew blood for, eager to get at it, and for the DNA of my cancer itself, so he can see if treatments tailored to the cancer’s DNA might be part of future plans, a kind man, and yet when I left his office a full body sadness took root in me and stayed until I got home. And after that, too.
After my visit to my friend Sunday, seeing the end stage of life enduring past awareness focused on faux Fall pixels for hours and hours, after reading through the article by U. of Pennsylvania oncologist, Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Why I hope to die at 75, after my root and branch sadness, not despair, not depression, but weariness with the drumbeats of impending doom, after watching TV as an analgesic for psychic distress, and after a good night’s sleep in the cool Mountain temperatures of mid-fall in the Rockies, I’m wondering whether to adopt, perhaps in a modified for me form, the philosophy Emanuel presents.
I’m already there with the DNR order, only pain and suffering care at the end. I’m getting palliative care already for my spinal stenosis. If I read his article correctly, he wants to move toward only palliative care after 75. That would mean, in my case, forgoing anymore tests for other illnesses, any vaccines, probably anymore cancer treatment except for palliative care, giving up exercise and fussing about my diet.
Right now, as I consider it, this seems extreme. Vaccines for example. And I’m not sure I’m there yet for stopping cancer treatment. Though I’m closer to that idea today than I was a year ago. Giving up exercise and fussing with my diet? Maybe. It does seem like gilding a dying lily. No antibiotics for easily treatable infections? Nope. That seems silly to me. Although his point about pneumonia as the friend of the elderly was one Kate made often.
What makes this attractive to me? I’ve been aware for a long while now of what Ezekiel nicely phrases as the American Immortal. Our curious obsession with health and exercise as a means not only of extending health span, but of avoiding death. The proof of this subtext to the whole health and wellness hoohah comes leaping off the page of the articles about billionaires and their anti-aging, anti-death regimens. 100% The death rate for each generation. Now and forever. And, it should be.
I could easily write and I’m sure someone has, a novel about a world where a few trillionaires live on, collecting the world’s assets like sturgeon cleaning the bottom of a lake, until the concentration of wealth becomes .000001% and the rest of the world has effectively medieval levels of well-being.
This is a conversation I’d like to have with any willing to entertain it. What’s appropriate? What’s really needed? Is 75 the cutoff? Maybe 80? What do you think?
