Death of actor Patrick Swayze

 

People started talking about the death of actor Patrick Swayze from the moment he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer early this year.

 

Read below how Shiana too starts to mourn the death of her best friend who is just diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer.

 

This seems to be a natural but not accurate human reaction. What’s accurate is that only death people are death, whoever is still alive can still be with you in daily life.

 

Although the diagnosis of stage 4 colon cancer is not something upbeat, it is still much different than getting the news that your loved one just died.

 

3 reality checks

 

We know that as soon as you or your loved one gets diagnosed with cancer, your emotions start running wild:

 

• anger with questions like "why me"
   
• sadness as we are confronted with death
   
• fear as we have never experienced this before and we have no clue what to do
   
• general fear of death
   
• …

 

In this case you need to remember:

 

• the person diagnosed with cancer is still standing next to you and is still alive
   
• maybe there are cancer treatment options to cure the cancer
   
• the angel of death is a real nice angel at the moment he takes away your loved one in times of overly pain and suffer without a cure

 

Actor Patrick Swayze metastatic liver cancer

 

According to the National Enquirer magazine, Patrick Swayze’s pancreatic cancer has since end November spread to his liver and he has started preparing himself for death.

 

Trying to keep a positive attitude

 

You can’t expect yourself to be happy once you hear that you or your loved one is diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer.

 

You have to be honest with yourself: this is something you never wanted and you are not at all happy with.

 

On the other hand: you cannot ignore the news, so in stead of "trying to keep a positive attitude" I would say"

 

you have to
make the best out of a bad situation.

 

Advice when you are your loved one is diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer

 

You need to know that your feelings are going to interfere big time compared to how you lived your life before. For instance my husband could loose his temper amazingly fast where he normally is as calm as a frozen lake.

 

You need to make the best out of a bad situation.

 

First you look for a cure: what kind of cancer are you dealing with and what are the cancer treatment options?

 

In the case of Shiana’s friend: what are the possible liver cancer treatments and colon cancer treatments? Would there be a new cancer treatment that could benefit your friend?

 

When you hear the doctors of your friend say that having a stage 4 colon cancer still gives her a prognosis of 2 to 8 years, that means that there must be some cancer treatments my father never had a chance to take (as his prognosis was 3 to 6 months).

 

Also, since a prognosis of 8 years is quite long, you could source around whether there isn’t any death insurance, life insurance, health insurance or cancer insurance that would accept and could benefit your friend.

 

You get in touch with other people who "have been there, done that". Everybody is different, yet it helps a lot seeing how others dealt with a similar situation. Shared experience is valuable because you most likely have no deep cancer experience yourself.

 

Most likely, because in Shiana’s case, she already lost another loved one of stomach cancer. This experience is very valuable because:

 

• you can repeat the things you are sure about they were helpful for your loved one
   
• you can change the things you regret (not) having done in your past experience when your friend got his or her cancer treatments or diagnosis.

 

The most important help possible is "be there when needed". This is as vague as "quality of life" and is something only you and your cancer loved one can answer.

 

Father told me:

 

you don’t have to do anything different, just do what you normally do and help mom out.

 

In my imagination "be there when needed" is dropping by from time to time and giving emotional or factual support when needed. Family members dropping by with a pot of new made soup so you could have a chat, eat some food and get the tension off the burning idea that "the one with cancer is going to die".

 

Again always repeat for yourself: who is alive, is still alive! Don’t fall in the trap of mourning the death of actor Patrick Swayze when he is still alive and kicking…

 

Quality of life

 

As you can see in the picture, actor Patrick Swayze is still smoking although he is suffering from pancreatic cancer.

 

At first you would think: how can he be still smoking knowing he has cancer?

 

This has to do with 2 things: "quality of life" and his pancreatic cancer diagnosis.

 

Most likely Patrick Swayze is not going to die from lung failure, so reducing his health smoking doesn’t make much impact compared with how his pancreatic cancer is reducing his health.

 

Therefore if he enjoys smoking that much, that’s part of his quality of life. It would be a different story when Patrick Swayze was undergoing lung cancer treatments.

 

Get organized

 

When there is no cancer cure or cancer treatments like chemotherapy are scheduled, the cancer patient will have less energy, will sleep or want to rest more and most likely will suffer from the side effects of chemotherapy.

 

• This means that the cancer patient won’t be able to take care of himself the full 100% he was used to. As a care-giver, you will have to help to get the 100% back in place.
   
• This means that also you won’t be able to take care of yourself the full 100% you were used to.

 

Remember that not only the cancer will take away time and energy from the cancer patient, but it will also take away time and energy from the cancer care givers.

 

Therefore you need to organise yourself:

 

• know what’s important and what’s not
   
• optimize your time
   
• postpone sudden tasks until the cancer patient is asleep
   
• take a moment for yourself: especially in the case of a prognosis of 2 to 8 years, built in time "free time" for yourself. This mostly means you get another care-taker taking over what you are doing. Don’t wait until you are exhausted: prepare yourself that your batteries need to be charged.

 

Metastatic liver cancer at 32 with children

 

Like we said: every cancer case is different. In case I got diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer at the age of 32 like Shiana’s friend, I would try to make sure my hubby and my kids are organized and take choices in a way their life would continue as smooth as possible.

 

You can watch on TV or buy a book how people re-organize their lives when they are confronted with a fatal disease, but don’t read too long when you can simply ask your friend as well.

 

Of course when your friend is as humble as my father saying: you don’t have to do anything, then you need to be more inventive in trying to find out how to help your friend in the next 2 to 8 years of her life with metastatic liver cancer.

 

How to fight the tears?

 

There is no need in fighting tears…

 

When helping a friend, try to leave your tears at home, but again: metastatic liver cancer is really a disease to cry about….

 

Shiana’s friend is 32 diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer

 

Shiana left the following comment at Can chemotherapy cure metastatic liver cancer.

 

I have read many stories posted on this blog as I was trying to find some answers to my best friends horrible diagnosis.

 

My best friend of nineteen years was recently diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer which has already spread to her liver. She is only 32 years old.

 

While I try
to keep a positive attitude, I too am starting to mourn her death before she is even gone.

 

I’m scared for her. I don’t want to see her suffer.

 

She has three young children, one of which is a newborn.

 

The doctors are going to start chemo on her and hopefully shrink the tumors before operating.

 

I’m hoping that she is young enough that there is some chance of survival. I know the odds are against her.

 

I don’t know how to comfort her, and I also don’t know how to fight the tears from my eyes every time I get on the phone with her and she tells me she cant eat, she’s constantly throwing up, she’s weak, and simply tired of living.

 

I keep telling her to fight we have to have faith.

 

I can’t bring myself to tell her I’m scared she’s going to die.

 

The doctors told her she may have 2 to 8 years to live if she responds to chemo.

 

I love her so much, we grew up together and she’s a sister to me more than anything.

 

I also lost a good friend of mine to stomach cancer 5 years ago. She died at age 34.

 

I feel like history is repeating itself.

 

I don’t know how to I’m going to cope watching her go thru chemo, possibly lose her hair and weight, and just overall suffer.

 

Can anybody give me any advice?

 

Summarized

 

Get organized when you want to help a loved one that’s diagnosed with (metastatic liver) cancer. And as long as your cancer loved one is alive: he is alive!

 

Don’t mourn for the death of actor Patrick Swayze when he is still alive…!