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29 VVVVVVVVVVV Live Longer or Live Better? JUNE BINGHAM When my doctor told me I have metastasized cancer, my first reaction was: “Hey, this isn’t as bad as I thought it would be.” Why not? Well, one reason is being really old, eighty-eight, as is my husband, ninety-two. Recently we’ve been forced to take note of the fact that we absolutely have to die of something pretty soon. Another reason is that for me the prospect of being the first to sneak off rather than be the one left behind feels like a major relief. Having once been widowed (after a marriage of forty-six years), I have no desire for a second round (after a further marriage of twenty years). On the other hand, I hate to load this burden on my husband and I hope he’ll forgive me. A third reason is that cancer is a physical ailment, not a mental or emotional one. My greatest fear has concerned the loss of mind, as with my pals with Alzheimer’s, or, even worse, the loss of lifelong personality. One warmhearted , gentle soul I knew ended up biting her nurse the day before the Grim Reaper, mercifully, put an end to her disease’s typical tangling of the brain’s neurons. Furthermore, even within the category of physical, a metastasized cancer is, relatively speaking, a quickie, as against, say, the long-term crippling that can result from a bad stroke or ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) which forces the person to drag along in radical helplessness for years, even decades. A fourth reason is that I can retain some control over what happens to my deteriorating body, like trying to keep it at home with hospice care, and thus avoid any well-meant but to me unwelcome curative treatment at the hospital. As I foresee the coming months, there will be two stages. The first is the current one in which I can function in limited fashion. For my husband and me, who lived through those long years of World War II, the emotions are familiar: a poignant treasuring of each day that we can still be together and a determination to put a brave face on whatever is coming next. The second stage is being bedridden and in pain. Although the oncologist has recommended surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, I turned down all of them. Five years ago I had abdominal surgery and took six months to recover. Today I don’t want to lose even one month of first-stage living. As for radiation , I still suffer from its aftereffects. As for chemo, its side effects would remove days from my first stage and likely addle my already addled pate. Besides, I would lose the hair that I rely on to camouflage my vanity-secret, namely, the ugliness of my ears. What I feel especially grateful for is the time that will allow closure with my beloved family members and friends. The process of reporting my ailment to them has been far more tiring than I had expected because I am often forced into the role of comforter rather than comfortee. At the same time, it has also brought times of unprecedented closeness. I asked my oncologist why a patient like me is forced into the comforter role. He said, “People are scared to death of cancer.” (I thought of adding, “People are also scared to death of death.”) He and I agreed that many people, especially the young and middle-aged, have avoided coming to terms with their own mortality, and therefore to face the mortal illness of someone they love makes them squirm for themselves. Another doctor warned me that some people’s reluctance to face their own mortality may cause them to stop wanting to see me while I undergo this process. As of now, my descendants and the few friends I have told about my ailment cannot help knowing that I love them, and I, in turn, know that they love me. Yet I also feel grief for their grief, which will last so much longer than mine. I lunched with a woman who cried all through the meal, yet she also used an expression that made us both laugh: “I’m emotionally incontinent,” she said. In trying to comfort her and other recipients of my bad news, I find that humor is a real help. In reporting to my erstwhile Flower Child, I mentioned that because my...

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