Isn’t this a great picture of three good friends? (Tom, Jim, RJ) I took it at Jim’s retirement party at The Mill, December 5, 2019. I will fill the Gallery section with photos from that night, and videos if I can figure it out! It was such a fun night. Jimmy loved it. So many friends showed up to celebrate with him! He was in between ordeals. Look how good he looks. And so very happy! (And note the new rugby ball!)
The following I put in The Cancer Diary on March 3, 2022. I look at the timeline now and I see how very close it was to the time of his death. He was being treated for prostate cancer. And the treatment was harder on him than we could ever have expected. In retrospect I wish he hadn’t done that treatment at all. What difference did it make if he had a little prostate cancer? It also masked the real problem of the growing cancer in his left lung…
March 3rd, 2022
Jim is having one of those trying times right now where he can’t cough up whatever it is in his lungs that needs to be coughed up. It strains his body, hacking to the point where he nearly makes himself throw up. Actually, sometimes he does throw up. Sometimes he goes a whole day without hacking like this at all. Sometimes he does this 3 or 4 times a day. It just depends upon the day and how his body is reacting to what’s ever going on inside it.
I wonder sometimes – wouldn’t it be nice if you could take one of those days for him. You know just one day, I’m going to take this day and I’m going to feel as shitty as you feel and you’re going to feel like a regular person. You are going to have your energy back. You are going to get a good night’s sleep. You are going to do all those things that people who don’t have lung cancer get to do.
I would take a couple days a week if I thought that would help. But, of course, I can’t.
Come to think about it, I think he has so many friends who love him so dearly they would each take a couple days a week or we can make a calendar and each person could take a day and the calendar would fill up with friends volunteering to take a day. Like, I’ll take March the 4th, you take March the 5th, somebody else takes March 6th, somebody else takes March the 7th and on and on and on and all the sudden Jimmy wouldn’t have to feel so terrible anymore. Wouldn’t that be nice? Of course, if we can magic it for Jimmy we can magic it for everybody else who feels as crappy as he does. I think that’s a great idea! Don’t we all have friends and family who would take our pain away for a little while if they could? I think we do, at least I know Jim does.
Or If we could manage the magic why wouldn’t we just magic the cancer away?
That was a memorable evening! Jim was feeling good and in a celebratory mood like everyone else was, Cheers Mate!
Tom, Jim had such a good evening! You being there made it even more special.