Chapter 11, Part I: Born to Boogie (True Story)

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No one wants to suffer or helplessly watch as those they love suffer.? However, even a life which some may deem of little value has an immensely intrinsic value which is sometimes evident only to the eyes of God.

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any times during programs, I provide my audience with the following “hypothetical” situation.? They are asked not to answer aloud, but to think to themselves about how they would respond:

Imagine a middle-income family.? The mother is pregnant with their eighth child.? The oldest child is 17 years old and is in the hospital with a very rare form of cancer, and isn’t expected to live.? Should they abort the baby in order to save money to help pay the hospital bills of the older child, or should they just let her “slip away” since she isn’t expected to live anyway??

After allowing the audience a moment to think about it, I tell them, “If you decided NOT to abort the baby, I appreciate that because that was my little brother Jerry.? If you decided NOT to let the teenager with cancer to just “slip away,” I appreciate that too because that was me!

This real life scenario took place in 1970, and I’m still going strong.? If this happened today I could be considered a prime candidate for rationing by some ethics or utilization review board, since care in my situation could be considered hopeless and thus “inappropriate.”

? It is known that it has occurred in the medical community, that treatment has been denied to some patients on the basis that the medical resources could be better utilized on someone else whose outcome was expected to be more optimistic.? The moral basis on which “quality of life” decisions are made, and the type of person who makes them, creates all the difference in the world for the recipient of such decisions.? What chance does a person have in a world of humanistic materialism where medical costs are becoming the criteria for “appropriate care”?? Ethics boards with a misguided sense of compassion seem to have lost an appreciation for the Christian meaning of human suffering in exchange for the belief that there is such a thing as a life not worth living.

God is sometimes denied an opportunity to work His miracles.? Just maybe God has plans for someone whom all in the medical world has given up on.? God allowed me to survive pancreatic cancer? for which there is no cure.? Miracles are not out of style!

While on a three-day bus trip to Old Mexico with my high school Spanish class I became sick and began hemorrhaging.? After being “shipped” home and undergoing eight hours of exploratory surgery, I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.? By the size of the tumor it was estimated that I had bled internally for five years.? This was consistent with the fact that from the time I was 12 years old, I was prescribed to take iron capsules for iron deficiency anemia.? It was later discovered that in reality I had blood-loss anemia rather than iron deficiency anemia.?

As the surgeon emerged from the operating room, he said to my mother, “I did all I could without making her a diabetic.? I can’t tell you any more.? She may not even make it out of the hospital.”

I received no chemotherapy or radiation since there was none (and still isn’t) available for that type of cancer.? All of my first intestines and the head of the pancreas were removed.? The pancreatic and gallbladder ducts were redirected.? Years later when I once again thanked the surgeon (who had become a good friend) for having saved my life he responded, “me and the Man upstairs.”?

I remember having all kinds of tubes running to and from my body.? One ran through my left side from my stomach to something called a “Gomco machine.”? (This was done in response to my preoperative request NOT to have tubes put down my nose and throat? - thank you!)? There were two drains that ran through my right side.? One drained from the gall bladder into a jar, and the other drained into bandages that wrapped all around me.? There was also a catheter, and an IV.? My sister who had planned to be a nurse decided a career? change after her first visit (smile!).

I can remember being in such pain that I told my mother I wanted to die.? These many years later I can still see her like it was yesterday, sitting in a chair beside my bed, and hearing my mother simply reply “offer it up.”? (From little up, we had been taught to offer to God our sufferings and crosses of each day in temporal atonement for sins.? This is consistent with the Gospel of Luke 24:47 which says, “In his name, penance for the remission of sins is to be preached to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”)

? I took my mother’s advice and “offered it up.”? To my surprise there was immediate though not complete relief.? Some say the relief should be credited to the mind.? If that is so, then why didn’t my mind do something before earlier about the pain, since my mind hadn’t wanted the pain from the beginning?? I know that God either relieved the pain enough so that I could bear it, or He gave me the grace to bear the pain as it was.? Either way, I wasn’t asking any questions, I was just tremendously grateful!

THANK HEAVEN that at that time euthanasia and physician assisted suicide? was NOT legal.? My statement of wanting to die was really a cry for relief.? Today, through a misguided sense of compassion, some interpret such cries for relief as an excuse to kill.? Currently hospitals that receive federal funds? are mandated? to offer patients an Advanced Directive or Living Will.? I sometimes wonder that if such a document existed at the time of my illness, and I had accepted it, if I would be alive today - I was considered terminal with no hope of recovery, and in terrible pain.? It is true that miracles aren’t out of style!

? Years after I had been diagnosed as cured from pancreatic cancer, it occurred to me that my personal experience with a life threatening illness and its physical, and emotional pain, was valuable “on the job training” for the volunteer work which I would later do in promoting the positive value of life from womb to tomb.?

The gift and example of my parents’ and family’s faith is one of the most important gifts God has ever granted to me, and for which I will be eternally grateful.? I was in the hospital for five long weeks.? Just a couple of weeks after I came home, my mother went into the hospital to give birth to our family’s eighth child.

Our family loves and celebrates life - all life whether old or young, healthy or sick.? We believe all are created in the image and likeness of God.? God put us here and only He should “take us out.”? In the meantime we are to treat one another with the respect and love deserving of one who houses an immortal soul created by God in His image and likeness.? How’s that for a lesson in self-esteem?!!?

I instruct my audiences that should they ever hear that I’m in the hospital and it is being decided whether to deny me food and/or water, to please instruct the hospital that I publicly stated that I’ll be back to “haunt” the first dude that starves me to death!? The audience always laughs at this light-hearted solution to a serious problem, but they get the message.