This can be a brutal subject but I think it is an important one. A few times I have brought up my father in comments. As far as fathers go you could not ask for a better one. He had an enormous heart and was loved by just about everyone who ever met him. Even my mother, who he left, was a great friend to him after the initial pain wore off.
In 1988 my father was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. He was give 6 years to live since the form of cancer was uncurable. While our realtionship before the cancer was good, after he told me we grew much closer.
Through those six years (amazing how accurate the doctor was) he went through different types of therapy. We always stayed optimistic and did the best we could in the hard times. For the most part the first five were relatively easy. The sixth year became brutal.
My father developed pneumonia at the beginning of the sixth year. He blew a whole through the top of his lung while trying to hold in a sneeze. (Try not to do that anymore, people) This hospital stay was the beginning of a long list of stays. At about the same time his cancer came back with a vengence.
That year he was in and out of the hospital about once every 5 weeks. The stays were usually between 4-6 days. His body was waisting away at an alarming rate. My brother and I would trade nights staying on an easy chair in his hospital room. Anyone who has not gone through this cannot imagine what it is like to wake up in the middle of the night to the screams of a man who used to comfort them through pain and nightmares. These screams and some of the other effects of cancer are indescribable on the written page. There were times I was sure that I could not take it anymore. Thankfully I had some amazing friends and family that gave me the needed support.
At one point my father was feeling better and out of the hospital. He had always wanted to drive Route 66 so I took a week off and we hit the road. The end of 66 is right here in Santa Monica so it was the perfect place to start. Taking this trip was the best decission I have ever made in my life. We got to talk about the good and bad things that had happened in my lifetime. I also learned things I had never known about him.
By the end of the week he was getting very weak. He hid it from me very well and I was unaware of how bad he was doing. That was one of the things that drove me crazy my whole life. He was one of those people that puts on a strong exterior no matter how bad the interior was doing.
When we returned home he wen back into the hospital almost imediately. He had no strength left and could not walk to the bathroom. At this point he asked the doctor to give him a fatal shot. He just couldn't take the pain anymore. I knew that he must be much worse than he acted because this man never gave up at anything in his life.
Obviously the Doctor could not give him the shot. I offered to take him to his house in the mountains and give him an overdose of pills. He would not let me do that for both legal and emotional reasons. Instead he stayed in the hospital, fading away into a coma, and died exactly one month after the last day of our trip.
The reason I am writting about this is a poll that I found at polling report. It is about the Schiavo case that Jeb has jumped into. Here is part of the poll.
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Terri Schiavo
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll. Oct. 28-29, 2003. N=900 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 3.
.
"Terri Schiavo has been in a so-called 'persistent vegetative state' since 1990. Her eyes sometimes open, but doctors say she has no consciousness. Terri's husband says his wife would rather die than be kept alive artificially and wants her feeding tube removed. Terri's parents believe she could still recover and want the feeding tube to remain. If you were Terri's guardian, what would you do? Would you remove the feeding tube or would you keep the feeding tube inserted?"
% .
Remove the feeding tube 61 .
Keep the feeding tube 22 .
Not sure 17 .
.
"If you were in Terri Schiavo's place, what would you want your guardian to do? Would you have your guardian remove the feeding tube or keep the feeding tube inserted?"
% .
Remove the feeding tube 74 .
Keep the feeding tube 16 .
Not sure 10 .
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This may be a post that few want to comment on. But to me this is a topic that should be discussed because many people here will be in the same kind of position my father and I were. Having watched the right jump all over Oregon for their law, I think this is something that needs hashed out and given more exposure. So here is the poll.