I have come to a big realization. I have allowed myself to do one of the very things I know I can’t let myself do. I have allowed my mind set or thinking to go to a more negative place. With all I have been told, with all that has happened, I have allowed my thinking, my mind set into what I think of as “dying man mode”. To me that is a time when those sort of thoughts dominate your thinking. Now what does carrying those thoughts around in your head all day accomplish? Absolutely nothing. Such negatively on such a constant basis only deprives you of the chance to live and enjoy each day as it comes.
I am not talking about being in denial. I know what is coming. I know that it could be this afternoon but I also it could also be days, weeks or I am hoping months or longer. That day will come and I can’t change that. All I can change is how I live the remaining days. Do I relax and get all the enjoyment I can out of them, OR do I just dwell on the inevitable. That choice is mine and mine alone to make.
I read something recently, it was to the effect that you only live once. Now I understand the overall meaning of that. But what I read gave me a bit of a different thought to that. We live every day, we awake to a new beginning every day. We need to make the most of each of those days as in fact it is dying that we only do once. What are your thoughts on that
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Who am I?
I am a 61 year old male. At the age of 52 I was told by my doctor I am dying. For the past 4 years, I have done my best to deal with both congestive heart failure and a brain tumor, while knowing my days are indeed numbered. It is my hope that by sharing my experiences, I can encourage others faced with the same situation. I hope to also help the families of those individuals to have an understanding of the process and deal with the fear or dread of being around the dying. I am not a doctor, not a man of the clergy, I am not a therapist. I am just me, Bill Howdle, I am merely sharing my thoughts and ideas. I write of death and dying, understand this is my personal prospective, based on what I am encountering.Blog Stats
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Dying mans daily journal 
HI Bill .. what an interesting thought – and of course so true .. we really do need to make the most of every day regardless of where we are in life … we are alive – let’s live ..
Cheers and happiness and relaxation to you and Vi and the family .. Hilary
Bill I wish you would FaceTime me, I have so many things to say to you but would rather do it in private with you and Vi there, even just for a few minutes!
Hey Beatrice, I would be happy to FaceTime. Sorry I know we talked of this before, memory guy here. I think you have my email address please just send me instructions on how to set it up on the IPod. Most mornings or evening work for me
Shirley said it best, enjoy each day to its fullest and don’t let that devil rob you by putting all those thoughts into your head! you will find reading the Bible or even listening to some sermons would get rid of all those thoughts and put Jesus back into your heart and your thoughts.We all have to die sooner or later but if you have a relationship with Jesus the thought of dying I find is really not all that bad,
I mean come on , this world is way gone and I can’t wait for The Lord to come and get us. This is what I wanted to say to you and not here on an open Forum . But this is of course the way I feel about dying and everybody has their own thoughts about it.
All you have to do is put my e-mail address in your iPad when you open up your FaceTime.
God Bless
Hi Beatrice, I always welcome and encourage people to share their individual thoughts and beliefs as you have done here. Thank you for taking the time to share
Bill
Bill, I’ve been following your recent adventures and I’m very sorry to hear that they couldn’t clear the blockage. Also very sorry to hear you’ve been feeling in ‘dying man mode’ – lovely way to put it – but glad that you’re perking up now. It’s always hard to take a setback. I think what you say about dying is very interesting. Living well is always tricky but I hope you are able to relax and enjoy the rest of your time… and I hope there’s a lot of it.
All the best,
BC
Thank you BC
Bill, observing your thoughts and putting them “outside yourself” by writing was the wisest choice you made today!! I love what you write. My friend Cal was somewhere the other day, watching a man wheel around his severely handicapped son. He was musing how much that man and his son would have to choose hope every day, and suddenly he realized with a start that HE TOO had to make the same choice every day. His story has stuck with me these last months and it reminds me of your story. We are all in the same boat as you, you are probably just more aware than most of us of your limitations, and in a way your blockages are a gift to you (though I am not meaning to say that I don’t know they are also difficult to live with).
Your post about the blockages the doctors were unable to clear reminded me of the last line of an old prayer I love by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (who himself lived with much difficulty, since he was executed by Hitler), “Lord, whatever this day may bring, Your name be praised.” (It is one of my all time favorite prayers and the whole thing is worth reading, and I just googled it and I found it on a hospice website! http://www.hospicenet.org/html/read6.html
Thank you Lydia. It is nice as always to hear from you. How are Lyle, yourself and family making out, your loss was great.
The poem is beautiful, thank you for sharing it with us
Bill
Thanks Bill. Lyle is doing all right, though he reports waves of depression hitting him. It helps a lot to know mom was ready to go and that she’s out of her suffering. This week we heard from the care home that her favorite nurse had a message for us. Mom had told her to tell us she loved us and that we shouldn’t be sad for her, but happy because she’d be out of her suffering and would be with her husband. We were so grateful to hear she had such a kind friend and listening ear in her last year, and that message brought tears to Lyle for sure. It means a lot. Glad you enjoyed the poem, it is so helpful when we don’t know the future or are uncertain of things. That’s what I pray for you and Vi. Thanks.
Hi Lydia, I so happy to hear Lyle is doing well under the circumstances. What a wonderful message to receive from that nurse. I can only imagine the loving feelings it must have brought about. My best to all
Bill
“We only live once … we only die once”???? Have you ever considered there is a continuity to being. That we must have come from something before we became this something and that there is something beyond this something. A great spiritual teacher, Joel Goldsmith, puts it that this life is just a parenthesis in eternity. Live this life to the fullest but know there is that continuity to take into consideration.
Hi Shirley, very good point, which plays a very big part of my belief system. My point was in making the most of everyday in this life time. We can look at every day as a new beginning.
Amen!! I feel the same way! Just make sure that one is saved by Jesus Christ, otherwise there will be no eternity with God!
The road to hell is very wide but the road to heaven is very narrow. God Bless us all.Amen.
I am just now beginning to read your journal, which I am reading with great interest. Since we are all in this together, I hope you do not feel alone. I am a nurse, retired. I actually had a patient visit me after she died, so I know our identity continues when we leave this sphere of existence. See my post “Identity After Death” posted on November 22, 2012 at my blog unearthlylanding.blogspot.com
Riverwatch, RN
PS I shall follow your blog. Thank you for sharing. I feel that since our bodies die over and over through our life and are replaced by new cells, and we are just a replica of the original, death is not really about the body dying but is about our spirit leaving our body.
We are all in this together. Courage and blessings to you.
Hi Riverwatch and welcome to the blog. I thank you so much for taking the time to leave your encouraging comment and do hope to hear more from you.
I popped over to your site and read your post. I don’t have the words to describe the feelings/emotions it brought up within me. Such a tragic yet beautiful story. I have so much to say about it on so many different levels. I seem to need some time to process it all. I will be back to say more. I hope you don’t mind but I will be adding you to my blog roll.
Bill
Thank you. I am honored.
Riverwatch
Moved me to read about your visit with Mary. You wrote that so very well. I hope you don’t mind that I visited. And I hope you’ll continue to visit this little community.
Thank you for sharing such a wonderful story.
Hey Mel, I am glad you popped over for that visit, I hope many do
Riverwatch, I just read your beautiful post about Mary. I’m grateful to you for writing it. Your experience is very similar to the experience I had when my brother died. Though I was at his bedside when he died, moments later I felt his spirit pass through me and it left me with an indescribable feeling of peace. I knew that he was not just saying goodbye, but also letting me know that he was okay and that we will see each other again some day — that he was leaving my plane of existence but that he was not GONE. He still sometimes visits me in my dreams, often with a warm hug that I can still feel when I wake up.
Cat I thank you so very much for sharing your tragic yet wonderful experience. I would love to read more comments such as you both have shared
Bill
Now is not the time to experience difficulties with leaving comments (but apparently NOW is…*sigh*) That being said….
Every day I do some form of battle with living in the moment. I’ve decided it’s very human of me/you to do that. I get lost in the noise and suddenly, hours later (sometimes DAYS later) I kick myself for having ‘wasted’ something that’s horribly precious and simply won’t come again.
Every day’s a new day–and any minute I can drop that niggling thought and move on to whatever’s in front of me. And I can do that as many times as I need to…..and some moments that’s a minute by minute ordeal.
I know what you say is true. I know what you and I do is very human. It’s almost a ‘knee-jerk’ response for me. At the very least, it’s a baddddd habit.
You’ve had some disappointments to wade through–some grieving to do. Losing that option left you with the doc’s words ringing through your head, no doubt. It’s the circumstances today–I don’t like them and I wished for different results with the surgery. I think I had a bit of grieving to do over losing that option today, I’m sure that’s true of you.
Back on course with grabbing everything you can TODAY. But really, Bill….first we grieve, yaknow?
((((((((( Bill )))))))))))
Still praying. Still hoping. Still kicking myself when I start to borrow troubles and worry–G-d’s got it covered, I know. BUT–ain’t what I, or anyone else wanted. Still….given what we’ve already experienced and the blessings bestowed–I have to believe He’s got plans. Awesome ones–yaknow?
Hi Mel, I thank you for your on going kind words of encouragement. The twist and turns this journey through life takes. Yes, I am a little disappointed but I am getting over that. Until a few months ago I didn’t even realize that there even was an option such as there was. The steady advances in science is amazing. It was attempted, didn’t work. If you don’t try how are you going to know.
Your words are always an inspiration to LIVE, life and not just endure it
Hi Bill,
I have hummed and hawed, gone back and forth, up and down and roundabout trying to decide whether to leave a comment or not. I follow your blog and have said before that I find myself dying without a human hand to hold on this bridge between life and death and with no friends or family to turn to I have found my virtual home here on your blog and gathered strength from the sense of the hands to hold on offer here. The reluctance to comment comes from a feeling that what I might say could be misunderstood for, the truth is, I like it when ou share the lows and downward funk you go through occasionally. Now, in no way am I saying that I want you to feel those things. It’s just sometimes when I feel my aloneness, my frustration and fear the my life is ending, reading how well you cope and the oozing positivity just makes me feel bad for feeling blue. But when the rare post appears that says you feel blue too, it kinda makes me feel like, oh, ok, this is normal, Bill has such a wonderful family but he feels the awfulness of a life being stolen away too, must just be part of this dying business. I guess it gives me permission to feel blue sometimes, sometimes sad, sometimes sorry for myself because I think sharing that side of dying is just as important as being positive in the face of death. I haven’t explained this well I suspect but I mean no offence nor do I wish you anything but good thoughts, positive days and restful nights.
Fairy my dear friend, I thank you for leaving this comment. Please, never fret or worry about anything you may want to say, just go for it. This leg of the life journey we are on is hard. By truly sharing our thoughts and feelings, we to some extent get to unburden ourselves. For me anyway, writing and talking does at times make it a little easier. For me the key I feel is to be able to do it in a safe, non-judgemental, supportive environment and that is what I have sought to create here. Has this site proven to be a wonderful support for me? YES, Yes, Yes, but I hope it has become the same for others.
Do I have my down times. I most certainly do. I am NOT happy about this whole dying thing. I have a good life surrounded by a loving family maybe all the more reason not to want to leave this world.
I believe it is but human to have our down times. I accept that for myself. Some times it even sort of sneaks up on me. It is like I don’t even realize I am in that downward spiral. At some point reality of my feelings will hit me. It is only then I begin the struggle to regain my focus.
Many times it is a struggle to have a positive attitude but I want that, I need that to be able enjoy what ever days I have left. I want to live and not just endure them.
Wow, did I ever get on a ramble and all to say. Always feel free to leave any comment you may wish
Sharing is caring and I cannot thank either of you enough for sharing. I focus on aging and sometimes I think that makes me “older”, but then I think, “This is my time in life to focus on aging. I shall not pass this way again, so I think I better focus on the whole picture of aging, much of which is “negative” .Maybe that is a mistake, but maybe it isn’t. I do know I’d rather be young!!
By the way, my Aunt Birdie was 7 months pregnant when she picked up a heavy tub and ruptured her aorta. After 42 pints of blood and a premature delivery, she survived. But the doctor told her she could “die at any moment, that even coughing could cause her death”.. She was a careful woman, but lived well and lived for 30 more years and died an old woman! Doctors don’t always know the future. Another person I know went to his physician, received a clean bill of health and dropped dead on the street as he walked out of the building! Doctors are mostly just guessing.
So……be of good cheer. Bad news is sometimes wrong.
Hi Riverwatch, I have to agree there are some negatives that come with aging but with it there are many positives/bonuses, when I can think of what they are I will let you know. LOL. No with rach season of life there are different wonders.
Thank you for sharing the story of your aunt. Hearing of stories like this are inspiring for us all. Thank you
Bill