The Long Goodbye
Ted Kennedy was the only one of the Kennedy brothers who got a chance to prepare for his death. Joe died when the airplane he was piloting blew up in WWII, and President Jack Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy were both assassinated by lunatic conspiracy-theorist gunmen. Senator Ted Kennedy took full advantage of the privilege of knowing that he was dying and having the time to say goodbye.
I was first diagnosed with leukemia (CLL) in December 2002. Almost 7 years ago. I was just a couple of weeks away from turning 54 at the time. At the time I had loyally served the same company for many years, and had gradually worked my way up to where I was then the General Manager of the European Division of the company. By the time I moved, I had been living in Western Europe for almost 15 years.
In addition to being treated by several excellent doctors in the Netherlands, I was a patient of the world famous CLL specialist Dr. Terry Hamblin in the very southern most part of Great Britain. He performed various high tech diagnostic work on me including my genetic markers, and he came up with a scientific prognosis for my life expectancy. The variety of CLL that I have is called “unmutated” which is not considered to be a good thing. It means that statistically only about 35% of my fellow patients with these same markers and symptoms are now still alive.
It took me the better part of 4 years to get everything prepared, and then in late 2006 everything changed. I resigned from my high stress, high ass-kiss job. I sold my house in Europe, and I moved back to America.
I now no longer smoke or drink or eat any refined sugar. I eat lots of fruit, nuts, and whole grain cereals. I get exercise twice daily on walks with my little black doggie. I have grown a nice grey beard, partially to hide the many lymphomas.
In America I bought an almost new, modest, suburban, highly energy efficient brick house, and a very high fuel economy Toyota. Since my only source of income is my savings, I am living much more frugally than in the past.
Weighing the good and the bad I consider myself to be have been given a tremendous opportunity. The reduction in stress is wonderful. Knowing that I don’t have a whole lot of time left has sharpened my thoughts nicely. I don’t put up with nearly as much bull as I did in the past. And I am far more likely to slow down and “smell the roses” or laugh at something silly. Or smile at someone, or thank an old lady for her courtesy. I’ve been shamelessly re-reading my favorite books and watching the excellent movies and TV shows of my generation on my DVD.
My curiosity has increased by several orders of magnitude. I am constantly looking things up now. Places I have visited, and subjects I have heard about for the last 60 years but have never bothered to explore. Thanks to the almost unlimited resources of the internet which I have available to me, almost all of the world’s knowledge is available after just a few key strokes and mouse clicks.
My life has consisted of many discrete chapters, and they have all been pretty good. This final chapter where I am an old, grey haired elder of the community is sure the best one so far!
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