Since I'm back in the blogging neighborhood I figure it's a good place for me to raise this next topic - because this is awful and tragic, y'all, and I don't in any way mean to discount that with my philosophizing about the life choices of people I do not know in the slightest.
Yesterday a friend of Mr. J's (and mine, but primarily she's his friend) posted a GoFundMe link for a family she knows - a mom, dad, and two small children. I'm not sure which of the parents our friend went to high school with, but the father is 33 and was just diagnosed with mesothelioma - he had a routine surgery for hernia repair and the doctor discovered his abdomen was full of cancer. I'm somewhat familiar with meso because it mostly comes up in people who are exposed to asbestos - but sometimes (as in this case) it's purely random and ideopathic. Either way, it's nasty and it won't be cured. The family has gotten several opinions, but the long and short of it is, he's got 3-4 months to live untreated. With an aggressive campaign of chemotherapy, he might live 8-10 months. According to the GoFundMe page, they will start treatment tomorrow.
After only about 24 hours of setting up the page, they had already raised nearly $20,000. The page was vague about what the money was needed for, other than a reference to the man's fear for his family "not being taken care of." Presumably this well-educated and -employed man has health insurance to cover his medical expenses, and disability insurance to cover his family's living expenses for the duration of time he is no longer working, and life insurance for when he passes. So while I fully appreciate the desire to do something to help in this very unfortunate situation, I have a hard time seeing why people are giving them money. I mean ... they can give money to whoever they want. But setting up a care page for meals, child-tending, and hospital visits seems like it would be a lot more productive and useful.
Now here's the part that will really make me sound like a giant b!tch. I do not understand why this man has signed on for "aggressive chemotherapy" that will, at best, buy him an additional 4-6 months of life. Chemotherapy is literally torturous. You are pouring poison into your body - and I can absolutely see doing it if there were a chance it might cure him, but it won't. He's dying. And evidently he'd rather spend his last few months of life in a hospital, puking his guts out and losing his hair, than coming to terms with his impending departure from this life and making the most of the time he has left.
I don't judge this man. I am endlessly sorry for him and thankful that I am not in his shoes. But if it were me, I think and hope I would choose differently. His children are small, but they are old enough to remember him, and to remember how he faced death. I guess he wants them to know that he fought it. I think I would rather teach them that death is something we will all face someday, and it's nothing to be afraid of. If it were me, I would be booking a long family trip to someplace beautiful, and traveling around the country to say goodbye to my friends and loved ones while I still had the strength to go.
If the GoFundMe page were raising money for that, I'd be happy to pitch in.
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