Last week here in Cancer Land (copyright, trademark), correspondence and conversation were very active. Several of those threads involved consideration of various aspects of death. Talking about death and dying triggered wistful nostalgia for one of the treasured rituals of academia—talking shop at the local pub.
We worried—a lot—about how to define an “ecosystem”. Well, maybe “worried” is too strong a word. We debated it. Over endless beer and pizza, in college-town bars around the world. And every one of those discussions, over the 50 year lifetime of the field of Systems Ecology, included this question: is a road killed opossum (or, depending on the geographical location in which the beer was flowing, badger, prairie dog, porcupine, skunk, marmot, wallaby, gerbil, fox, pangolin, anteater, agouti, armadillo, aardvark, aardwolf, etc.) an “ecosystem”?
After that discussion incubated for a pitcher or two, a side conversation arose. At issue down the quiet end of the table was whether embalming and coffin burial made dead humans less of an ecosystem than simple, unembalmed, unboxed burial a couple meters down in the soil column.
A rarely-stated assumption shoring up the whole debate was the universally-accepted axiom (Oh yeah. This term borrowed from the jargon of mathematical proof reminds me to remind you not to get me started regarding the nature and “reality” of mathematics itself. This topic requires its own blog entry further down the muddy path we’re hiking here) that “life” itself is not possible absent “death”. Ecosystems function via cyclical processes. Cycling of water, carbon, nutrient elements, gasses, and physical space are the cogs on which the machinery of life is constructed. “Cycling” in this case means that individual organisms claim a fraction of the physical universe temporarily for themselves, and later return the borrowed bits. For the life of the organism, the atoms and molecules compiled from the ether stay with it. When the organism dies, its molecules and atoms return to the universal pool from which they were taken, enabling another organism to dip into the pool and extract its own molecules and atoms.
Without death, eternally living things would become a unidirectional sink for the chemicals that enable life. Immortality, weirdly, would guarantee universal extinction. Our hypothetical undying creature would harvest the matter of the universe cumulatively. Eventually, the universe would consist of one enormous organism with nothing to eat. When that sucker starved and died, that would be it. The end of existence.
So we need death. Sigh. Still, there may be a less radical way out of the trap. What we can do…or at least try to do…is make our lives so rich and wonderful for the people around us that death becomes irrelevant. If we’ve done our job, and filled the space around us with laughter and love and teaching and learning, if we’ve bound ourselves to our others in intricate and ongoing ways, our corporeal selves become simple window-dressing. If we’ve done our job, nobody will even notice we’re gone. Because we’re integral and always with our people, in their thought and in their humor, in their perspective and in their hearts. Fundamentally, we are so much a part of their lives that we cannot be dissected out. They are living with us…or stuck with us, depending on how successful we’ve been at enriching their lives without imposing on them… . Our death doesn’t change that compact. Hell, if we’ve done our job really, really well, we are bigger, funnier and smarter in their lives than in ours, because we’re partnered up with their own footprints, filling interstices that help them complete themselves.
Whoa. I just read the above paragraphs. Pretty long-winded way to get to the point of this week’s posting. Which is this: cancer, for those of us unlucky enough to experience it, is a wake-up call. To get off our butts and live…really LIVE…every single day. Because it’s not just cancer. Or any disease, or other specific causes of death. Death is, in fact, a fundamental and necessary parameter for a functional universe. So ALL of us, cancer or not, sick or healthy, in whatever condition we find ourselves, need to Live ‘Em While We Got ‘Em. Because we only get to borrow them, not keep them.
As I explained last week, for the past few weeks, my days were getting pretty damned uncomfortable. Palliative Care expert Dr. S futzed with my meds, and made some suggestions about how I timed out my daily doses. Added a second anti-nausea drug, one that would also assist the THC in generating some appetite so I could “eat” my medical “food” more comfortably. Gave me a scrip for a high-powered antibiotic designed to suppress acute pneumonia.
All of which worked. When I went back to see Dr. last Wednesday, I reported that I was feeling better. Was getting my full calorie ration and maintaining—even gaining—weight. Was managing to “exercise”. The latter in quotes because I am so weak after a year of parking my butt in a recliner that I can only manage to walk, slowly, for short distances. But, after a year in a recliner, I CAN walk, slowly, for short distances.
And I really, really need to build up my stamina. I am anticipating having an awesome couple of weeks at the beach. I want to be able to get out into all of the accessible habitats for nature photography and specifically for photographing reptiles and amphibians. I want to be able to serve as daily cook, pumping out suppers worthy of a seriously relaxing vacation in a house full of old friends, children, and friends of children.
So I have filled all my scrips, counted up the pills and tablets, purchased several liters of expectorant cough syrup to help thin the mucous that accumulates in my throat and mouth, and started to sort out the stuff I’m going to need to function, crippled as I may be, on the gorgeous east cost barrier islands ecosystems. I have just about two weeks to get my shit together before we head for the Outer Banks. So this coming week I’ll be attempting to up my level of exercise and do the shakedown cruises for timing my medications.
Check back next week for all the anticipatory details. Oh yeah. The antibiotic runs out, I think, tomorrow. I’m really, really hoping my throat doesn’t immediately decompose back into the bloody mess it was a couple weeks ago. But apparently things are pretty beat up in there, so it’s possible I’ll be stuck with a septic nightmare for the foreseeable future.
Beats the alternative. Thanks for being here, everybody. I love you all. And don’t forget—Live ‘Em While You Got ‘Em. Because they’re not forever. Rock on!!!
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