Reflecting on life after a friend gets a horrible diagnosis

I think that almost all of us take our lives for granted and think that we are just going to carry on for a very long time. I know that for me personally I never really thought about death or dying - for myself - until I reached middle-age. But honestly, even then I don't really think about it in any other sort of way other than it being a long time from now.

Both of my parents are still alive and my bloodline has a history of sticking around for a while so it isn't something I have ever really worried about. I do think that when your number is up, then you are just gonna go, and while there are some situations where you can fight it and maybe even win, for the most part, when you get certain things diagnosed it is kind of the beginning of the end and you don't really have much choice but to do the best you can with that news and prepare for it.

This is something that I feel I will have to do when I am in my 70's or 80's but recently a friend of mine just started feeling more down that usual for about half a year and he always just kind of attributed it to the fact that he was maybe having too many beers.

This guy in question was not a drunk, he was far from it. He is a regular drinker at the Elks Lodge, but he was one of the people that never got trashed. I have never even seen him more than a little bit tipsy to be honest, but he was a regular drinker. He was never really overweight but he also was not someone that was going to be looking after every little vitamin that he puts in his body. In fact, he never really went and got those you-are-getting-older tests that they always tell people, especially men, that they should go get.

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After about 6 months of just kind of feeling down in the dumps he decided to stop drinking and we all applauded him for doing that. We might be rednecks but we don't think that someone is a pussy if they don't want to imbibe anymore. He was doing it to see if perhaps that was what was making him feel tired and just kind of lethargic all the time and for about 2 months he hit the sober trail and we would only see him with his wife at the Elks every now and then. He would be in high spirits when he would come and see us but he didn't drink alcohol. He would have his ginger ale, play some pool or cornhole, and after a couple of hours and a few cigarettes he would take off, sober as the day is long.

After a few months of that his feeling of being drained all the time didn't change and he finally figured he would go and get a full checkup and see what the damn deal is. Unfortunately for my friend Steve the tests came back in a truly awful way.

He has leukemia and I don't think there is really anything worse that the doctor can possibly say to you when they come back to your room with you sitting there with a stupid grin on your face trying to be as pleasant as possible in an uncomfortable environment.

There are some kinds of cancer that they can nip in the bud and if they get to it early enough, you can actually totally recover. With Leukemia, and I am not going to try to say I understand it fully, but it's not as simple as opening you up and cutting a piece of tumor out of ya. They basically gave Steve, or as we call him "Stevie-B", about a year, year and a half tops, before it's going to be shadow time for him.

This has hit him very hard, as you would expect. He has been in the dumps about this and when he does come around, which isn't often, we don't really know what to say to him. We just give him a hug or a handshake, whichever he wants, and then try to carry on as if he wasn't given a death sentence.

What do you do when you find out that your life is definitely going to end in 18 months?

I know that I spend a lot of my days doing completely stupid shit that doesn't mean anything or perhaps just completely wasting a weekend sitting on the sofa watching TV or even worse, just day drinking with a pal and accomplishing very little. I'm not saying that every single day has to have a schedule where every minute has a purpose and an activity but we do spend a lot of time just doing nothing. Stevie-B did a fair share of that as well and when I talk to him about what he is going to do with his time left he says certain things that are kind of heartbreaking such as that he was waiting until he was retired to do a lot of the things that he wanted to do in life... lots of the thing that he wants to see are quite far away and he is advised by the doctors to not go on these trips because of his fragile health.

It got me to thinking that maybe I should stop delaying so much of what I want to do or the people that I should spend time with but I put it off because I am a bit under the weather this weekend.

Stevie-B is not old either. He is in his mid 40's and he, just like me, thought that he had a good 40 years left to go and therefore put things off.

This is really depressing to me and it isn't even happening to me. One thing that Stevie-B made us all promise at the lodge, and we all agreed and we will hold one another accountable for, is that we go and get a health screening to check for these kinds of things. Stevie-B did what a lot of Americans do, which is nothing... or buy more Aspirin at Wal-Mart. The doctor's have either been lying to him or trying to make him feel better by saying that this likely wouldn't have been detected even if he had come in years before he did... but is that true? or do they just realize the futility of lecturing a man who is already on medical death row?

If you are in your 40's or hell, even your 30's, maybe you too should take Stevie-B's advice and get to the doctor, clinic, lab, or whatever it is in your country and get these checks as well. I would really hate to see myself in Stevie-B's situation and even though I don't know you personally, I would hate to see you there as well.