Living While Dying

Learning to live in the face of cancer.

by Ethan Remmel, Ph.D.

From the Family of Ethan Remmel

Many of you may have heard the news by now, and if not, I'm sorry that you are reading about it for the first time here. Ethan died Monday, June 13th, surrounded by his loved ones. (This post was written by Grace Wang.) Read More

Farewell

I expect this will be my last post for this blog. Thank you to Psychology Today for providing this small soapbox and to you for reading. I am planning to take my Death with Dignity medication soon, unless I die spontaneously before then. I have limited energy to write, so I am not going to spend it justifying my decision by describing how poor my quality of life has become. Read More

Short comment

I have received some feedback on my thoughts about the Death with Dignity Act. As I said, I have not decided whether to use this option, but I feel strongly that it should be legally available to mentally competent and terminally ill people such as myself. Read More

The Meaning of Suffering

It is strange, and a little scary, how quickly my physical, mental, and emotional condition can change. My main physical variables are fatigue and pain, and my emotional state tends to follow them. Last weekend the pain was low but fatigue was high. Read More

Goodbye Chemo, Hello Hospice!

I'm still alive! Sorry I haven't posted for a while. The main reason is that I have been too tired after my last chemotherapy. I had chemo (the FOLFOX drug combination) about two weeks ago. It worked great to reduce my bone pain, which is now under control, but I was really out of it mentally for a few days and then had about 10 days of extreme fatigue. Read More

Pain

Things have changed for the worse. Specifically, my bone pain has increased and is currently not under control at an acceptable level. Until last Wednesday, March 2, I was using a 50 micrograms of Fentanyl (which is 100 times more powerful per amount than morphine) for bone pain and 10-20 milligrams of Oxycodone per day for breakthrough pain. Read More

No More Chemo?

I haven't posted lately for two reasons: (a) I haven't felt well enough to write and (b) I haven't been sure what to say because my feelings change a lot from day to day. However, I'm feeling better physically (knock on wood) and I hope my emotional state is stabilizing. Read More

My Decision

I decided to go with Option 1: Stay the Course (see my post "Weighing the Options" for all the options). I had chemotherapy today, using the same FOLFIRI regimen that I have been using. Going to chemo feels like going to my own execution, except they don't kill me, just make me sick, and they are super-friendly and nice about it. Read More

Living Well

I don't want to give the impression that life with terminal illness is all doom and gloom. In fact, that's exactly the opposite of the point I want to make: the key to dying well is living well as long as possible. I have just had a very fun week and one of the best vacations I've ever had. Read More