A Better Way To Go

Sat. Aug . 7 /10 0510 PDT. I sit here listening to “ol 55” by Tom Waits . The music soothes. The cancer is now rapidly growing. The tumours in my bad lung are obstructing my air way and are choking off the air supply to my good lung. Panic sets in when one starts getting starved of oxygen. Maybe this is the way the cancer is going too kill me. I know that this will not sound right but, luckily I have experienced near drowning twice before. So , I know what to expect if I die this way. During the near drowning experience , once the panic subsided . I thought , gee ! ,this is almost comfortable. I could feel each second slowly passing by. Then the will to live kicked in , and I struggled to get to the surface of the water , sputtering and gasping. If the tumour chokes off my air supply , there will be no way for me to get to the surface ,so to speak. This is a much more preferable way to die rather than laying in a hospital bed , all doped up and incoherent. At least this way my death should be less painful and quicker than if the tumour metastasizes to my brain or eats through my spine. I am getting a bit nervous .and am now physically extremely worn all the time. I can drink 3 strong heavily sugared coffees and immediately lay down and drift off. Sometimes it is difficult to appreciate life at this stage but I still mange to most of the time . My lucid moments are still being spent chasing practical day to day matters. Selfish or not , I believe that I should rather be spending my time documenting the dying experience , in my own way of making peace with the world. But those are not the cards that are dealt to me. I get a bit nervous now . There is a bit of physiological cause of the nervousness as my oxygen supply is slowly being increasingly restricted. It feels like someone is slowly trying to choke me. The other aspect of the nervousness I really wonder if I will be here tomorrow or the next day. Rather than be contemplative , I have to keep pursuing practical matters to get through the next day?, days?. Although demeaning and humiliating I am going to include the open letter again with the hopes that it somehow spurs the Union and Manulife Financial to be compassionate and take some action. . What a waste to have to spend ones last days in this way. Bye fro now See ya on the other side. Again the open letter. An Open Letter To the Trustees from the Union ( Local 500 I.L.W.U. Vancouver Canada) that has control of my death benefits and Manulife Financial. Release my death benefit funds so that I can spend the last few weeks of my life with some sense of independence and die with some dignity. All that has to be done is “sign the papers“. It cost the Union nothing. It would change how I live my last days out for the better immensely. Manulife has already allocated the funds. The cheque is going to be issued soon any ways. Manulife doesn’t care if the small amount of funds is released now or in a few weeks. Let a person living use the funds and maintain some security and dignity during their last days instead of throwing the funds into a hole in the ground.