The End of Life Issues forum is now officially up

[Tab]

Unpopulated, perhaps, but up

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1285

Thanks to eLad and Skinner for running this through!

[alfredo]

1. I hope your baby thrives. There's many with loved ones transitioning.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Good going, Tab.

[angstlessk]

3. As much as the Cancer Support Group is scary

The End Of Life Group must be doubly so...

There is hope in the Cancer Group, not so much in the End of Life Group, though I admit there is much to be imparted.

[Tab]

4. It's scary because we know so little about it (or talk so little about it)

I was scared too, but once I ultimately accepted it was final there were practical things to attend to, other people that are affected, emotional stages you go through, understandings about hospice and hospital, family members that may not understand, social workers that help you through it. When you first get into an EOL situation, the scary thing is that you've never done this before.

I had a lot of questions (and some things I've learned) that make it easier now, and it can dominate a forum so that's why we broke it out.

I hope you stay and can contribute to, or get something out of, the forum.

[angstlessk]

5. The only thing I can contribute is when I BELIEVED I was dying

I had uterine cancer and I thought cancer was a death penalty.

My solace was in very strange areas, ants, bees, and genes.

Not that simple, I mused about it for a long time.

[Tab]

6. That helps; you run a lot of your priorities and life through your brain

I find it easier to say what I don't want to do just to please others; if I want to go home early and rest, I just say so. If I don't have time to be on a project, I just say so. I get to prioritize my time now. In really, I always should have, but it's easier for me feel okay about saying so now.

I take it your cancer is in remission? Good for you.

Ants, bees, and genes, huh? Any common thread there?

[angstlessk]

7. It was how ants and bees will easily give their lives for their nest mates

because of the genetics...and that it is genes that matter not the body.

I thought about how I was the result of every ancestor who did not die before they gave birth, for millennia...how lucky was I to even exist? And my genes will live on, through my son, my parents, their brothers, sisters and all their children.

That somehow gave me peace.

[Tab]

8. That's a nice way to think about it

[angstlessk]

9. Tab, will you let me post this as a stand alone post?

Since this is how I made peace when i believed I was dying?