|
DEATH
I have suffered serious illnesses since I was three years old. I didn’t know what death was until later, but, I knew what it meant to be incapacitated from almost day one.
The first death I can remember was only in conversation. I heard my mother speak with her sister about the death of Bad Eagle. He chanted, “Going home to Jesus,” as I recall the conversation. My mother’s emotions always affected me quite readily, and I remember this as an important moment. Jesus was very close to this matter of death, I felt.
When I was three, I had a life-threatening sinus infection and respiratory problem. I was in bed for days, and the doctor came to the house. I remember the wonderful love and attention I got from everyone. It was a special feeling of being close to my family.
When I was nine, I had a typical tonsillitis infection and tonsillectomy. That was awful, as I remember it. (Those records and the tonsils were not to be found when requested decades later. The entire hospital no longer existed.)
At age 11, I was diagnosed with something called Hodgkin’s Disease. They didn’t stage it in those days, but, it was advanced, and I wasn’t expected to live. I had a huge tumor right in the middle of my chest, and it was growing attached to my heart. When they operated, I was told it was miraculously removed, with no attachment. It was self-contained, and I appeared to be fine.
However, my parents were told I probably wouldn’t live to be sixteen. (I was never told this. Not until decades later did my parents tell me.) I went through the most agonizing cobalt treatment, at a time when such x-ray therapy was devastating. I still have the burn marks on my back, chest, and under one arm. I couldn’t play baseball anymore. If I walked to fast, my nose would bleed. I was greatly weakened.
I started having minor biopsies at age fifteen, to examine lymph nodes that had begun appearing. These biopsies continued throughout my teens, and early twenties, until I was sliced to pieces. They were all negative results, however. It became almost a routine. Little did I realize what my parents felt during each surgery.
When I was at Yale, I came down with something called Sjørgren’s Syndrome. It was then called a pseudo-lymphoma, but now is considered a lymphoma. It was all over my right lung, so, I underwent another major, thoracic surgery. A slice of my lung was removed for diagnosis. It was actually at the point of fatality, so I had to undergo chemotherapy. My doctor, Harvey Kaetz, treated this advanced syndrome as though it were an actual malignancy, and the disease responded accordingly. The visible symptoms were visibly reduced after the first course of treatment. Dr. Kaetz had made history, and it was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
I seemed always prone to sinus infection. I’ve never been a sound sleeper, and nasal problems always added to my struggles to rest. In 1990, I came down with a terrible sinus infection, and finally had to see a doctor. To my dismay, I was diagnosed once again to have cancer. It was Hodgkins Disease again, at second stage. I had a small tumor removed from underneath one of my arms, and that was the tip off. Bone marrow specimens followed, and finally, another prospect of chemotherapy.
I was terribly discouraged. I went to a natural remedy health center in Poland Springs, Maine, and for a few weeks tried their methods, with no results. I returned to Connecticut, and continued the natural remedies. Things only got worse. I then submitted myself to the emotional terror of chemotherapy. For me, it was truly a terror.
Nothing is more important to me than my mind. Under a swooning mania of chemically induced instability, the mind is precisely what one does not have control over. I feared that I could survive, emotionally or mentally. I was perhaps the most fearful time of my life. I was older, and I realized the real value of life, because I realized what death meant. In younger days, I never once thought of dying. This third encounter with death was most convincing. I had to think of dying.
But I didn’t die. I continued living. I survived, recovered, and began a doctoral program before the year was ended. Of course, moving from Connecticut to Arizona was a thrill in itself, and I got to stop and see my parents on the way. In fact, I spent several weeks with them, in Oklahoma City, in my home.
I started my program at the University of Arizona in late August, 1992. Two weeks later, in early September, my father died. He was a long time emphysema patient. It was a great challenge for me to concentrate. I had terrible, sleepless nights, mostly due to the noise level of the U. of A. campus, and the noise level of the Tucson Valley in general. It was a most trying time.
While I was there in the desert, I was still suffering the effects of the chemo therapy I’d had in Connecticut, but something new developed. I developed puritis, or, intense itching. Everyone said it was the dry heat. In my case, puritis is a symptom of oncoming Hodgkins, so I was concerned. It turned out I had developed an allergic reaction to chlorine taken internally. In other words, the tap water was not good for me. I had to start buying bottled water.
In addition, I developed skin cancer. I had a big slice taken from underneath my right eye, then later a big hole dug out of the left side of my nose. They said it was Tucson, but I happen to know that the problem under my eye had begun while I was still in Connecticut. I don’t know about my nose. All I know is that I am one cancerous individual. Cancer is well within me.
And death is my close companion. Naturally, its concerns are part of my religion. Though I never really think about dying, I think a lot about death. I love being alive, but I’m not crazy about life. I have avoided marriage, because I never wanted to leave a woman a widow or our children fatherless. For the longest time, I thought that I was incapable of having children, due to the extensive chemotherapy and cobalt I’ve had. It turns out that I was mistaken on that, but, alas, much time has passed. I always thought I was trying to play the nobler part, not carelessly using a woman, creating children, with the full knowledge that my likelihood of being alive was so very small.
In fact, I had a lovely female friend (a psychiatrist) who married a diabetic, knowing he wasn’t long for this world. She had a child by him, and in two years, he died of a heart attack. The girl grew up, disturbed by this, and at age fifteen, murdered her mother. This is a terrible tragedy, and I never imaged anything like that in my case. I abstained from marriage just because I didn’t want to put a spouse and children through the agony of my death.
Today, I enjoy fairly good health. I still don’t sleep too easily, but I am able to play soccer, and do physical labor, as long as I am able to rest when I need to. It turns out to be an impromptu life. My schedule is irregular, but intense. Of course, I’ve not had medical insurance since Yale, nor any life insurance. I have a burial policy and make payments on a plot. I am one of those folks who fall between the cracks. I’m just not in the system. I had a heart test a few years ago. It took me three years to pay it off. Poor health and poverty make wonderful partners.
I’ve kept a journal of my thoughts over the years. I’ve written several short pieces on the matter of death. In time, I will post these on BadEagle.com. Death has been an important part of my life, though I have neither sought it, nor honored it. I consider it an enemy, and an oddity. I will never accept it, nor idolize it, nor revel in it. There is nothing to learn from it, no joy to derive from it, or no cause to pursue it.
Right now, the summer of 2002, I am working on the largest essay I’ve ever written. It is on understanding the phenomenon of death, and the truth about it. There is a bit of virtue in making the effort to know the truth. “Egyptian Thanatology,” is a natural history of the psychology of the supernatural. It will be listed on BadEagle.com when completed. It is practically a burlesque, or at least an arabesque of history, theology, politics, religion, and psychology. My personal experience will be found in my journal testimonies, but the world view is in the essay.
|
