Leroy Sievers is a journalist who has spent a long career covering dozens of wars. He is accustomed to seeing other people die. But now, he is witnessing his own death. And on a recent
NPR podcast, Sievers talks about how his doctors are trying to kill him by pumping poisonous chemotherapy drugs into his body. They haven't succeeded in killing him yet -- but they haven't cured him of cancer yet either.
Blogger Dalene Entenmann
wrote about Sievers on July 3, 2006, pointing readers in the direction of his NPR blog My Cancer. Since her posting, Sievers has continued to reflect on his battle and on October 3, he shared an essay about chemotherapy -- the same essay he reads on the NPR poscast. He tells readers and listeners that nowadays he reports for chemotherapy every three weeks and sits for five or six hours while drugs sail through his veins. The drugs just keep coming -- and a vacation from this drug treatment is nowhere in sight. It's become a way of life for a man who is simply buying time. It is a changed life -- one he would happily live without.
Sievers, who thought he won the war against colon cancer and is now fighting brain and lung cancer, wakes each morning and feels pretty good -- as long as he stays in bed. When he gets up, the nausea begins and the tingling in his hands and feet begins. It takes him hours to get going, and eating is the last thing on his mind. But he takes pills that require food so giving up food is not an option. Sievers fights through debilitating fatigue each day, and no longer schedules anything in the morning. Mid-day -- when he feels pretty good -- is when he packs in appointments and meetings. But it all wipes him out and by the end of the day, the nausea and fatigue is back. One-quarter of one day, and Sievers is totally spent. And then each evening is a repeat of each morning.
Sievers is trying a new drug and hopes it will shrink his tumor. He doesn't want to get his hopes up though, and he fears disappointment. Mostly, though, he wants his old life back. Even if just for a few days.
When you're knee deep in the mess of stress, anxiety, disappointment, panic, fear -- you name it -- isn't it nice to escape for a moment, to feel relief from the burden of heavy emotion? I think so. And I happen to know from personal experience a few techniques that have a calming effect on the most overworked of minds. I'll make it brief, because I know reading volumes of self-help advice is not what's on your worried mind.
