I'm glad you were more proactive and caught it soon enough to make the difference. I need to get on a program like that to start watching for things that could cut me down before I get to watch my son become a man. That has really begun to shape my actions the last few years, but I've still got a long way to go. From a physical standpoint I abused my body to the point that most would not believe. All the sports in high school, and I guarantee I put more miles on my body in college than most of the athletes did. Then most of my post-collegiate years I've spent playing "ball" of some sort. Men's league baseball, softball (high level tournament down to beer league coed, 5 nights/week, 8-12 games/week for almost 8 years), flag football, basketball, if there was a league I was in it. Now I'm paying the price, but I couldn't change it nor would I change it if I could. I had A LOT of fun. Oh, I almost forgot that for 22 years I've worked at a minimum of 8 hours a day, 5 days/week walking on concrete floors. 5 miles on a slow day around here, as many as 15 on busy days. I've worn pedometers off and on for many years now.
Back to the important topic now, our laser engraver who has been with us from the first day we opened this building is terminally ill with cancer. He never says exactly what type of cancer it is, but seems like bone, and I just don't ask for details. It's obvious he's dying. 2 years ago he had prostate cancer and it was fairly advanced at that point since he didn't get checked out till way late. They removed the prostate, did some intense radiology of some sort, but he didn't opt for the most aggressive treatment. So he was fine for almost 2 years but in the last 4 months he's lost almost 70 pounds and his doctor gave him the news that he was terminal and the cancer is back. He comes in when he feels like it, but it's only about 15 hours a week, but he gets paid 40 no matter what. We're doing what we can for him, but it's not ever enough. I finally convinced him to get on the opioid schedule so at least he wouldn't be in so much pain and he's much more happy now. In my mind, or my opinion, his fears for taking the opioids didn't make sense. Yeah, he'd be physically and mentally dependent on them, but why spend the last 6 months of your life in THAT much pain if you didn't need to? Maybe not everyone will share the same opinion and chastise me for trying to convince him to go that way, but when you see someone you've watched the last 12 years go through that kind of pain I just wanted to help him improve the quality of life that he has left and that seemed the most expedient and most practical way to do it. The guy could barely walk on most days and now he's coming to work somewhat regularly and teaching me how to run the laser, generally in a good mood even though he will not be walking this earth come the fall. They initially gave him 3 years, maybe more if he was lucky, but the rate at which he's dwindling away is drastic and no way he'll make it to 19'.
He has a son that is about 25 years old and I thought they had a decent relationship but he approached me a few weeks ago and asked me if he could name me as estate caretaker upon his death because he can't even get his son to drive 25 miles to his apartment to sign the paperwork. I told him I would, then when his son comes calling for all of the material goods and money I'd just hand it over to him and be done with it all. I'm sure there are legal things that would need to be done to protect myself but I haven't done the research yet in hopes that his son will step up and do the right thing. It really sucks to watch this happen, and at first most of us put a lot of blame on him because he never properly took care of himself the first go around with the prostate cancer.
So yeah, let's try and take better care of ourselves. Regardless if the going trend is that most men are evil and this world would be much better off if we played a backseat role in society, the world does need us, they just don't want to recognize it right now.
