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Post by johnc on Apr 12, 2018 12:48:33 GMT
Less than 2 years ago I got a call from a guy who became a friend and was in charge of training me in my first job, to tell me that his wife had died of cancer at 55 yrs old. We have kept in touch over the years and normally play golf once a year. This morning I got a call to tell me that my friend had died this week from prostate cancer at the age of 59 having only been taken into hospital 10 days ago!
The friend who conveyed this bad news said he was off to book a holiday to Australia and New Zealand because he has always wanted to go and keeps putting it off - this event has just focused his mind that you should never put off till tomorrow something you can do today.
Live life guys and leave this world with memories, not regrets. |
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Post by Ben on Apr 12, 2018 12:59:40 GMT
Yeah. It's good to always remind yourself every now and then that time waits for no one and to live your life the best you can.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Apr 12, 2018 14:02:13 GMT
Sobering stuff. We've had 10 members of the golf club die this year so far. Most of them were elderly social members who you rarely saw but two were in their 50s. Most shockingly one was the bar manageress(65) who contracted sepsis through a cut on her finger and was dead within the week, despite the hospital's best attempts to save her, a month before her retirement party.
My own father had plans for his retirement but died suddenly at 51. I'm past that age now so tend not to make too many long-term plans and just focus on what I'm doing over the next 12 months.
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Post by franki68 on Apr 12, 2018 14:18:49 GMT
Totally.I lost a friend who was 50 about 8-9 years ago and it completely changed my outlook on life.I lost another friend a few weeks ago,he was 52 ,and another friend who is 48 had a heart attack a few months ago.
The lesson here is don't be my friend .
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Post by Tim on Apr 12, 2018 14:32:14 GMT
Mrs Tim has a friend who was complaining about a sore hip, after a lot of nagging she went to the doctor, got referred for a scan and was kept in hospital over Christmas 2016 because she had cancer that had left her hip in a terrible state.
She subsequently got a hip replacement and a lot of aggressive chemo but, sadly, there is no way back for her.
She's still with us and in fact was in Las Vegas for last Christmas but recent scans have shown the cancer in her spine and inside her skull.
She's only 41.
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Post by Blarno on Apr 12, 2018 14:36:45 GMT
Totally.
My Brother survived a lymphoma back in 2010 only to discover recently that it has returned.
Life can get fucked sometimes.
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Post by Boxer6 on Apr 12, 2018 18:39:56 GMT
An ex-colleague who I keep in touch with recently told me his wife was complaining of a sore stomach for quite some time, starting just before Christmas. 3 weeks ago found out she has gastric cancer, which has already spread to her liver and lungs. She's been given 6 months, which might be extended to 9 if a new treatment works as they hope; it should at least improve her quality of life a bit, he says. She's 48.
Some of you may recall my ex-wife died of this horrible disease while I was still in recovery from mine. She was 42.
Life can indeed be shit as you say John.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2018 19:17:28 GMT
Never nice to see people go through that.
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Post by humphreythepug on Apr 13, 2018 6:53:58 GMT
Guy at work lost his wife last year to cancer; she was dead within 5 weeks of initial diagnosis, she had been suffering from various pains and discomfort for a while which she put off getting looked at, who knows how different the outcome would have been if she had gone to the Dr's earlier.
*edit*, Just got into work to be told by my boss that his cousins wife, has bone cancer; she's only 30.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2018 9:02:28 GMT
These are truly awful stories. But we shouldn't lose sight of generally increasing life expectancy, and (with a modicum of personal responsibility) the chance of a much better quality of life and later life than has ever been enjoyed by humanity before. Obviously there are no guarantees, but one of the reasons we notice these things so much more is that our expectations are, quite rightly, so much higher.
I didn't realise that I was starting a prolonged period of semi-retirement when I changed tack in 2012, but I will always be grateful that I did.
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Post by Big Blue on Apr 13, 2018 9:47:16 GMT
Well, cheerful stuff in the run up to the weekend.....
I'm 50 this year and feel truly blessed that all my close friends have made it with me. Losing my dad and step-dad was pretty bad but they had full lives far more action-packed than mine - but for my cousins it's far worse: their mum has had Alzheimers since around 2002 when in her early 60s and last year their dad died suddenly (albeit in his 80s). Their mum is, as is the par for the maternal side of the family, in complete physical health (as is mine I'm happy to say) but doesn't know anyone around her at all.
I think we're right: get on today with what we would put off till tomorrow if we know we would still be here tomorrow. We don't.
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Post by PG on Apr 13, 2018 9:57:47 GMT
Life is both wonderful and cruel in so many ways.
We need to live our lives and do today what we need to. But I do also think it is very good for the soul to think about our legacy too - whenever we go. Be that children, good deeds or just living a good life. Each day I look at the oak trees we've planted around the farm and I hope that somebody will be looking at them in 200 years and thanking the person who bothered to plant them.
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Post by johnc on Apr 13, 2018 11:10:51 GMT
I've just made an appointment to get our Wills updated next week and I am getting my life policies written in trust with a named beneficiary which means the proceeds sidesteps any Inheritance Tax liability. I feel a bit better having taken some positive steps to protect the family.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Apr 13, 2018 11:27:55 GMT
I've just made an appointment to get our Wills updated next week and I am getting my life policies written in trust with a named beneficiary which means the proceeds sidesteps any Inheritance Tax liability. I feel a bit better having taken some positive steps to protect the family. Would any of these named beneficiaries be your friends on The Motor Forum? (Mind that bus!).  |
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Post by Ben on Apr 13, 2018 11:33:35 GMT
I think I may have shared this before, but a couple of years back a close friend of mine (who's only a year older than me) got sent to Mexico for a work assignment for a couple of months. When he got back he found out that his dad had been diagnosed with late stage liver cancer.
As a result of that, the mum fell into depression, and weeks after my friend returned from Mexico, the mum took her own life.
The dad's condition deteriorated and by the end of the year he was gone too. All of these happened in the space of about three months.
That hit me really hard. It was an extremely difficult experience even as a bystander.
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Post by scouse on Apr 13, 2018 12:51:46 GMT
At the moment I'd just like Fate/God/Allah/Odin/Yahway/Whatever to leave my family the fuck alone for a while.
2014 - Ma, breast cancer, remission fortunately
2015 - Da, quintuple bypass, doing alright
2016 - me, cancer, treatable, but not beatable
2017 - Ma-in-law, Hodgkins lymphona (fortunately the very treatable kind, docs hope for full cure and I've not heard them oncologist use that word before)
2018 - me, abdominal adhesions due to the cancer surgery.
I've always been the one to look on the brightside, that everything will be ok in the end, but it's getting damned hard to do so.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2018 13:24:24 GMT
Bleep.
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Post by Roadsterstu on Apr 13, 2018 18:06:10 GMT
Sorry to hear that sad news, John. Events like that are those reminders we sometimes have to suffer to help us to put our problems into proper perspective and to make sure our affairs are in order.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2018 19:33:12 GMT
Scouse, how are you doing with that?
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Post by scouse on Apr 16, 2018 12:20:45 GMT
Scouse, how are you doing with that? Muddling on mate. Could have done without another blue light run to hospital in January, but hey ho shit happens. I've (kind of) got my head around there not being any chance of remission. |
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Post by PG on Apr 16, 2018 15:54:40 GMT
Scouse, how are you doing with that? Muddling on mate. Could have done without another blue light run to hospital in January, but hey ho shit happens. I've (kind of) got my head around there not being any chance of remission. Shit...keep battling... keep striving. |
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Post by LandieMark on Apr 16, 2018 16:29:46 GMT
Sorry to hear that Scouse. Keep battling.
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Post by Alex on Apr 16, 2018 17:05:22 GMT
Really sorry to hear that Scouse. No one likes to think their time might be limited but if it is I hope you’re making the most of it and enjoying your life as much as you can do,
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Post by scouse on Apr 17, 2018 0:08:10 GMT
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not going to be anytime soon. Consultant reckons expectancy without treatment is in the region of 10-15 years and 20-25 with treatment. Treatment is an injection in the arse every month by what feels like a sodding ballpoint pen, with the radio-nucleide stuff held as a reserve in case the tutored start growing again. The men in my family aren’t known for their long lives so if I get 25 more years I’ll not be far off the average for us.
The blue light run was due to the abdominal adhesions which is were the intestines literally ties itself in a knot around the scar tissue - imagine the worst case of constipation you can imagine, but higher up. I was nil by mouth for a week to give the knot chance to untangle itself. It only worked when the nurse started giving me the massive doses of liquid Tramadol straight into the vein over a minute or so rather than over an hour through the drip. Took another 3 weeks to get back onto solid food and I lost 2 stone again. I have to take drugs before every meal and be careful of what I eat and portion size.
Fuck it, I’ll get to the kids grow up regardless.
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Post by Alex on Apr 17, 2018 4:54:04 GMT
Well that doesn’t sound at all fun Scouse so you have my sympathies.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 17, 2018 7:36:13 GMT
Yes, really sorry to hear all of that. FIL had part of his bowel removed in '85 and he gets these adhesions periodically, and no less painfully than you describe.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Apr 17, 2018 8:06:00 GMT
There's an old saying that goes something along the lines of; if every man were to bring all his cares and troubles in the World and lay them out on the table for all to see and trade, each would be grateful to collect his own back up again and take them away with him.
It does sound shit Scouse, but hopefully medical science will continue to advance.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 17, 2018 9:38:41 GMT
Sorry Scouse, nothing simple in the world. As Bob say's, every day gets the quacks closer to a realistic fix. Look at AIDS for example. People are having normal lives rather than 4-5 years. You are positive too which will help.
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Post by Ben on Apr 17, 2018 15:25:16 GMT
Sorry to hear that Scouse.
Having a terminal illness would feel really bittersweet to me. It's a terrible way to go, but at least there is time to prepare for the inevitable.
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Post by grampa on Apr 18, 2018 9:16:25 GMT
My sympathies as well, Scouse - very tough, but nice to hear you focussing on the positive.
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