Thoughts On My Summons… A Retired Catholic Physician Contemplates Dying
By JAMES ASHER, D.O.
Part 3
(Editor’s Note: Dr. James Asher is a retired family physician. His practice experience has included family practice, emergency medicine, prison, military, and the Indian Health Service. He and his wife live in Phoenix where they are members of the Cathedral Parish of Saints Simon and Jude. They are parents of seven adult children, fourteen grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. He is a fourth degree Knight of Columbus and vice president of the Catholic Medical Association of Phoenix.
(He has been an occasional contributor to The Wanderer. He is completing the book Searching for a Few Good Men, intended as a complement to mentors working with young men. He can be reached at: Grampa6101@gmail.com. Part 1 appeared in the December 10, 2020 issue of The Wanderer and part 2 appeared in the February 11, 2021 issue.)
- + + Time has flown by since I was deep frying turkeys on Thanksgiving. March 5. I was given a two-month respite from chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer originally diagnosed in November of 2017. The treatment is intended to slow but can’t stop the spread of the disease. Chemotherapy was going well but I was getting overly sedated. And, by the grace of God, I have outlived almost everyone who has gotten my diagnosis, now into my fourth year of survival.
However, instead of the expected lifting of the somnolence and low energy from the drugs, paradoxically, I got worse. Over the next two weeks I became so low in energy, so lacking in appetite, really, so weak, that I was unable to write anything, including the promised article for The Wanderer.
Pain in my liver, stomach bloating so severe I could not take fluids, and very low energy got to the point of my finally going to the hospital, where a diagnosis was quickly made of liver abscesses. Well, this was a new twist and didn’t have anything to do with cancer, although it may have been a long-term complication of the original cancer surgery and re-routing of bile ducts and intestines. The rapid diagnosis was made possible by modern technology, most notably a CT scan. Treatment was possible because of modern antibiotics.
Relief of pain was immediate when the doctor put drains into the abscesses and was much appreciated. The drains from the abscesses and major IV antibiotics which would continue for about the next four weeks were the main treatment provided. But it took a week or two to get back to feeling something like normal. Lack of energy was probably the biggest problem, which is a known complication of liver abscesses.
I spent that week in the hospital gradually improving. In spite of all the good the hospital had done me, I was anxious to get home and was able to wangle home health care in much greater comfort, where I think I’m recovering faster.
For those of you wondering why I didn’t return your calls and good wishes, I think I was as sick as I have ever been and just getting through the day was an accomplishment. Here at last is my response, finally, to you. Thank you for all your prayers and good wishes. They buoy me up.
Well, there is the current issue of my liver, but underlying all that is still the pancreatic cancer, gradually gnawing away, so no matter what the liver does, there’s still the pancreas to anticipate. So I assume the liver thing will get well, but I’m still faced with the inevitable. Now what?
“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” (John 20:29).
I have never had an out-of-body or near-death experience. I’ve known only two people who claim such experiences. I’ve had general anesthesia several times; in all cases, I went to sleep and the next thing was waking up in recovery — even after a five and a half-hour surgery. No floating around the hospital in the meantime.
Spiritually, or perhaps better stated transcendentally, life has been pretty mundane. Although I have been the beneficiary of many strange and wonderful experiences — surely of divine origin — none would classify as a true miracle, and I don’t know anybody who claims a true miracle in their lives. Perhaps my imagination is mostly drab besides. I hang all my hopes on John 20:29.
Why do I adhere to the faith? I suppose it’s because since I was a little boy I’ve known to whom I belonged and where my primary obligations lay. How did I know these things? I don’t know, I just did. I am mystified by all those leaving the faith, and our political leaders who use the faith as a camouflage or perhaps as a weapon or a tool, to justify the evil they regularly engage in. Perhaps lying is such a normal state of living day to day, that they are no longer aware.
I feel like I should get going on this article in case as the end approaches I’m not up to composing anything. I could be very sedated, in pain, unmotivated, whatever, and not able to write anything, so I’ll write now, even though in the midst of recovery from the liver problems.
I’ve wondered if some afternoon or early morning I’ll just “fly away” or if the trip is going to be involved, complicated, or painful and more than simply laying down my head and closing my eyes for the last time. I keep going back to the Spartan soldiers who needn’t concern themselves about the water temperature if they are required to march through the river anyway. Someday anyway and one way or another, I’ll be on the other side of this thing, I hope looking down benignly on the rest of humanity. I hope I can be of help.