I would like to share excerpts from an e-mail from a friend who wrote me today upon learning of my condition. "Having been through my mom's fatal illness last year, I can tell you that I deeply feel for you, your family and ... your friends.... Everyone may be different, but one thing I've learned is that most people with serious illnesses hunger for companionship and connection. They want to know and feel that they really matter to others."
I can attest that I am no exception. One of my first instincts upon learning of my condition was to fear loneliness and isolation and to seek the comfort of family and friends with a special intensity-- an intensity that I suppose is borne in part of the realization that I don't know how much time is left not only, in my friend's words, to feel that I really matter to others, but also to let them know that they really matter to me. Whatever the source of the intensity may be, one thing I am sure of is that I want to fight as hard as I can fight against the fearful loneliness of dying.
