Emily has asked our family to read Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande before Christmas so that we might have some meaningful conversations during our time together over the holidays. The first third of the book is about how our culture is ill-equipped to handle the challenges that aging brings. After that the author starts talking about dealing with cancer and how we don’t handle that well either. A study found that 73% of doctors overestimated the time that a terminal patient will live, by 513%! No one has given me a prognosis and given our decision to live in the present I have used that as my measure. There has been some discomfort due to side effects which have cleared with the equally uncomfortable steroids but otherwise I have not suffered significantly. I realized that I was thinking that I have been implicitly assuming that I had years remaining as a result. But what if it was only months? My choices of how to spend my time would surely be affected. Consistently when patients realize that they are terminal they choose to spend more time with family and loved ones. This is true for me as well.

 
I likely will get a scan in early January. This will provide me with knowledge about how the treatment has helped and where I stand with respect to the tumors. I have been imagining that depending upon what I learn I could be making some decisions about how to spend the rest of my time.

 
Son-in-law Ryan wrote me in response to a blog post:

 
“On https://blog.stewartpsychologists.com/?page_id=100 you write “What activities bring me energy and joy?” but don’t really answer — at least there — the question directly. I’d be curious what those things are and if I can do more of them with you. I’ve often thought about going to get a beer being a nice thing for us to do together, though you mention in another place that you “consume more alcohol than is probably optimal.” If you are clear on what other activities are joyful and energy-giving that we can do when we get together as a family or otherwise, let me know what they are.

It’s a good question for us all to be asking and trying to answer. I think that playing music, being in the wilderness, having good conversations with close friends or small groups of folks and reading are some of mine. Sometimes cooking, but it’s not always something I prioritize. I get a lot of energy from writing and sharing what I’ve written with folks but definitely don’t prioritize that much either.”

Ryan has stimulated me to think more about what activities bring me energy and joy. And I hope to spend more of my time engaged in them regardless of what I learn from the scan.