April's CR Diary

« Please Help Save My Friend Chris! | Main | You Could Get Hit By a Bus Any Day! »

November 8, 2008

Every Day I Spend With You, I Call It Lucky

Thanks so much to all who have already sent in your forms or your request for forms! MoMR, Jessica, Mary, Luke, Jeannie (I'm using blog names for people I work with) and also to both my parents who have agreed to do so and to Lauren, who can't due to her own status as a cancer survivor but who offered well-wishes and prayers. Thanks also to my parents who are working on theirs.

I found a site for friends of Chris, and they say they're hoping for a lot of people under 35 or even 30. Another thing I'm too old for... blergh. I'm 34. But to my readers under 30... please, please please read this beautiful post by our friend John and email in the form. Anyone else, please do fill out the form, you never know who might have the supercharged cancer fighting cells.

I've been really shaken up by the death of Judy followed so closely by news of Chris' diagnosis. It's hard to describe, but Chris is the kind of guy who seems absolutely unshakable. The kind of guy you figure could easily carry you to the nearest hospital if you were to take a bad fall. He'd have your back in a fight. He wouldn't collapse under pressure. I'd love to see him organize (she says with the same tone as the hockey player in the film "The Cutting Edge" saying to the figure skater, "I'd love to see you play hockey.") He'd be intimidating if he weren't so friendly. The thought of a serious illness threatening his life is almost more than I can process. I don't know him well at all, but I'd thought of him often since we met and always figured that life being the way it is, we'd eventually find ourselves in the same place at some time and get to hang out. I'm sure I'm one of very many people who feel this way.

Meanwhile, I am feeling more protective of MR than ever. If you're the kind of person who tends to be overprotective of your partner, I strongly encourage you to date a life-extensionist. He wears his seat belt. He does CR. He looks both ways before crossing the street. He does not ski.

I am so grateful for every day I get to spend with him. I barely want to let him out of my sight at the moment, both because he is so cute and because he is so precious to me that I feel like I must be on hand to make sure he's safe. I am still however managing to go to work and get my nails done and such.

I'm contacting everyone I know to get them to be screened as potential donors for Chris. I even wrote with a little suggestion for potential media... perhaps all the hell of CR media I've done could come to something? I wish there was more I could do. Even though I only met him briefly, I can't imagine a world without him and his contributions.

If this works though, and if he can achieve any sort of improvement in his cancer, then history will be made and I've no doubt it will jump start research on therapies that could help millions.

It seems odd to remember arguing about CR with the extremely vibrant, funny, brilliant and super cute Chris Heward (is it untoward to describe someone facing a life-threatening illness as super cute? I think not. I think that of all times, that is the time when one should be reminded that one is a creature much loved and admired both by those who can understand the science and those who do not. If I am ever facing a life-threatening illness, I want to be reminded that I am cute. With specifics, please.)

He didn't think that CR would work, and that the trade off of perhaps a slight increase in health was not worth any loss of quality of life. I argued that my own quality of life was much improved by CR, and that for me there was no sacrifice.

Now, having slipped off and on my CR and re-visited what it's like to be a "healthy" eater but not CR'd, I can say for sure that for me, I have a greater quality of life on CR. And that if I were to know that I would die in a year or five, I'd still want to enjoy every last minute of my life, and for me, that would mean doing CR. I've never felt so alive as I did when I was at my very severest CR.

I'm sure that Chris would not have felt the way I do, and that for him, CR would have been the wrong choice. We were both right: we were both putting a high value on quality, not just length, of life.

Surely I will be employing every means I have available to me, whether it's organizing others to volunteer to donate, possibly donating myself (I'm 34 but in great health!) and praying up a storm, to help. Perhaps it's a false sense of agency, but it's better than nothing.

I'd just like a chance to buy him a beer and argue about CR again, with both of us confident that we're looking at many years of healthy life ahead of us.

Posted by april at November 8, 2008 2:45 AM

Comments

Posted by: Anne at November 8, 2008 7:42 PM

Posted by: lauren at November 9, 2008 6:56 PM

Posted by: zeynep at November 10, 2008 7:43 PM

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:

URL:
Remember Me? YesNo

Comments:

Preview

Post