The Glade 4.0

Seriously, can we just fast forward to 2011? My mom's breast cancer has returned (been in remission since about '99). One of my wife's best friends was just diagnosed with ALS, and her mother is going in for some sort of nasty sounding eye surgery. My brother is going through a messy divorce. Ugh. Makes my spring time sinus infection seem like a walk in the park, but still... been a rough year already... can I just go to sleep until, say, Halloween? Got to wake up for the anniversary, otherwise my wife will have my head on a skewer.

I'm sorry =( will say some prayers for you, Damaged.

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Dream as if you'll live forever...
...Live as if you'll die tomorrow

Vivere Senza Rimpianti

The upside might be that the string of bad illnesses is bad, if you subscribe to the theory that bad luck comes in threes (your mom, wife's best friend, brother). Other than that, sorry it's been a crappy year for you so far.

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

Sorry to hear that Damaged. You do seem like someone others lean on for support during times like these. You'll make it through this alright =)

A lady at church got breast cancer but they caught in enough time that she only had to have a surgery and a few rounds of chemo and then she was fine, so less than a year and she is good to go. I know it sucks, but I'm hoping its a similar situation with your mother and that she only has to go through some minor fatigue and discomfort for a few months and then have it go into remission again.
What is ALS? I have never heard of it.

Hoping all of this turns out much better than it sounds, and hope you get some peace and some rest.

Oh and Happy Anniversary, whenever that is!

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Condolences Damaged, and I understand how the snowball affect of bad to horrible news can devastate one.

As far as ALS, I can cut and paste this, I even know what it is. Nothing about this ailment is good.

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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's Disease," is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their death. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed.

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It was invariably and relatively quickly fatal when Lou Gehrig came down with it. It is more treatable now, so that you can be kept alive much longer. There is still no known cure for it. I'm not sure how much of an improvement that is.

Better write up - https://health.google.com/health/ref/Amyotrophic+lateral+sclerosis
Organization - http://www.alsa.org/?gclid=CPP7p9uxuaACFRdSagodPyPhSw

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

So its in the same family as Parkinson's and MS?
Thats awful.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

This is my mom's second round with breast cancer. They're going to be doing a bone scan to try and make sure it hasn't metastisized, that's happening later this week so we'll see what happens. If it's confined, it'll be surgery and chemo/radiation (not entirely sure which course of action they're going to take yet).

My wife's friend has degenerated fairly quickly, there was a lot of screwing around by both her and the doctor. She went to the ALS center in Dallas on Friday (my wife drove her there). She's mostly lost all use of her left leg, left arm is pretty bad. However, she's now one of Jerry's Kids, which is good as they'll cover a lot of her expenses. She's still working, her manager has been quite understanding and the company is providing everything she needs to work from home. For the most part she's in good spirits, but her mother and her kids are all driving her insane, except for the 10 year old, who will do stuff like mention how they could take the stairs, then burst out laughing. Of course, she doesn't know how bad things really are, she's being sheltered a lot, and, in my mind, for good reason.

I know I'll get through it, everything eventually passes, it's just a whip when you're in the middle of it. C'est la guerre, and all that...

Oh, and LadyKate, the wedding anniversary is Oct. 31.

Your anniversary is on Halloween? Hahhaa duuuude thats gonna be a crazy party! Bride of Frankenstein and the monster himself? Count and countess dracula? I would totally have a photo album with a picture of us in costume for each year.
What are your plans?

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

It's worse....much worse. Average lifespan after diagnosis was about 18 months.

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Memento Vivere

I have local knowledge.
That sandbar was not there yesterday!

Oh my goodness! Seriously, SG? I thought that degenerative diseases ran a course of several years or longer depending on treatment.
Thats horrible.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

They are starting to develop treatments that slow the disease so some increase in lifespan should be occurring. Unfortunately most of the "increased" life span is a change in treatment plan. Basically most people died when their muscles were too weak to breathe. In the US it used to be unethical to place these people on ventilators. Now it is considered the right thing to do.

I don't know how I would feel being on a ventilator and unable to move. In Texas, there are only about 8 nursing homes that will accept people on ventilators. Yes, that is in the entire state of Texas. The closest one is about 90 miles away and has a long waiting list.

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Memento Vivere

I have local knowledge.
That sandbar was not there yesterday!

See, this is the thing I don't get. Why put them on ventilators at all? At that point, what is their quality of life like? Can't move, can't talk, can't do much of anything but lay in bed and wait to die.

Why don't we let people die with peace and dignity anymore? Must we prolong the suffering to the very last second?

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Holy shitsnacks!

Thats exactly what I was thinking, Arafys. How worse of a nightmare can you get than having a fully functioning mind but completely paralyzed and not being allowed to die?

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

I don't know, hearing your loved ones discuss whether or not to kill you...seeing them pull the plug as you scream, "No"?
It's interesting that it's always centered on what we think we should do to end their "suffering", when we really have no clue.
Not saying that my wish is to be kept alive at all costs, but since I've made my wish known to those who matter...

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Really, Vin? You would rather lay in bed, can't pee, poop, eat on your own...can't even breathe on your own...can't even blink an eyelid as a method of communication...all you can do is hear and think.
And you'd still rather "live"?

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Pfft. You'd think they'd do it out of earshot. Common courtesy, y'know.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Yeah, a friend of ours usually has a big Halloween party every year, so we do the costume thing then. For the wedding, there were lots of skulls, skull and crossbones tie and Converse All-Stars for me, and little glittered skulls throughout my wife's bouquet. This year we're talking about trying to go to New Orleans. Better than our first anniversary (food poisoning). Last year we had just had our bathroom remodeled, so our second anniversary was low key, went out to dinner. Third time's the charm, right?

My wife's friend was initially given 1 year to live, but that was before talking to the specialist, who gave her a still grim, but better prognosis. Only time will tell, of course, in some cases ALS burns itself out before killing, but it's out of my hands.

As for the question of being kept alive by machine, please feel free to hash it out in Hellfire in a new thread. Thanks!

Yeah sorry about that, quite insensitive of me. Very very sorry. I really hope your friend never has to face that issue.

So, yeah 3rd anniversary should be better considering the first two, haha! Have you considered going to Mexico for Dia de Los Muertos?

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Oh, I wasn't offended by it, and I'm fairly certain she has made her decision regarding how she wants to go, just don't want to have this thread get overwhelmed by debate over life and death and get punted over to Hellfire or something.

That's a great idea, I will have to run it past my wife. As long as it's not in one of the border towns, of course, she got her fill of those cesspools when she was renewing her TN1 visa every year...

I'm thinking "lawyers".

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In time, this too shall pass.