If you are coming here for the first time, you need to know
that this blog, while once a showcase for my newest work,
that this blog, while once a showcase for my newest work,
and other photo-related issues, has been re-purposed.
These writings are a means to help me cope
with my dad's terminal lung-cancer.
with my dad's terminal lung-cancer.
He lives in Las Vegas and I in Phoenix.
It was 1972 and my dad and I went deer hunting for the first time. We drove for hours and on a lonely Nevada road I saw a beacon flashing in the middle of nowhere. I asked him what that was and he told me that it was Sherry's Ranch. "Who's Sherry," I asked. He told me that it was a whore house. "What's that?" I asked.
"Oh, you know, men can fly their plane up or drive out here so they can sleep with a woman," he told me. I guessed that they didn't have wives and I didn't understand why anyone would go out of their way for such a thing or how they could get anyone to fall asleep on such short notice. I thought a motel would be a better choice. Ely, Nevada wasn't too far away. Clearly I was thinking sleep, but he was thinking "sleep." It took a while, but I finally woke up to what he was saying.
After getting home from Las Vegas, I called my dad to check in. He was pissed off.
I asked what was going on and he said, "You know that damn Dr. Ruckdeschell? Now he's whorin' me out to 'nuther buncha god-damn doctors! Them bastards!"
"Dad, is this in regards to the thoracoscopy that you need to have?"
"Probably," he said.
I explained that he could expect to have a team of doctors and other health-care professionals lining out the door and going around the block by the time this was all done. He reminded me that he is in charge and that there would only be a line if he allowed it.
Just because they have a treatment for cancer doesn't mean he has to take it. I think he'll have the thorascoscopy, but I bet you he won't take any chemo or radiation. However much I disagree, I think that his eventual refusal of treatment and eating right will be his last-ditch attempt at controlling his life.
His life is about him. His end-of-life choices need to be respected. (Please remind me of this as things progress and I begin screaming.)




