Paul Simons

Wow thanks Ann. I never heard that one before.

And one good tune deserves another - https://youtu.be/h-0gm9fxOOk

Steven Levinson

Paul, David, Ann, now we're talking.  Our lives are ours, so let's keep on dancing.

Larry Klein

Steve - no worries Dude. In '99 my PSA climbed over 12 B4 my doc decided I had prostate cancer. Took it out in Feb '99...and I'm still here 21 yrs later. We'll share a celebratory cocktail at the 2021 reunion. As I often say in golf and bridge when things go a bit awry..."Justice" prevails (pun intended).

Philip Spiess

"Alea jacta est."

Barbara Kahn (Tepper)

Jon Singer, that's a terrific idea! I have already decided we will play Oldies if Roy goes first.  That's what he would want.  If I go first I don't care because I won't be there but I have requested cremation and no cemetary visit ever.  

We are both cancer survivors and he is open heart surgery as well.  Mine was stage 4 Steve Levinson and I never doubted my survival.  You just do what you have to do.  We have both lived extra years to see more grandkids.  I am babysitting the early shift tomorrow for the 2 youngest age 2 and age 4 months.  I will be out of my house at 6:30 am.  I am so happy to be here and have the strength to carry on. 

Good luck in your treatment adventure Steve and hoping for great success and many more years. 

Barbara 

Steven Levinson

Larry and Barb, thanks for the inspiration.  Phil, it sure is!

Becky Payne (Shockley)

Dear Steve:

Thanks for keeiping us informed. We were very sorry to hear your medical news, but are hoping for the best, and I'm sure your positive attitude is helpful, regardless of the outcome. So keep it up!  Becky and John

Ira Goldberg

The brave, thoughtful, uplifting, loving comments are beautiful. They leave me missing each and every one of you. May all of our and our loved ones' health issues be manageable for as long as it is possible. Steven, make it 90. Until we meet again...

Nancy Messer

While I have never had a life threatening medical condition like cancer, I do have medical conditions that greatly limit what I am able to do.  It depresses me somewhat to think back on the things I could easily do many years ago and can't do now.  Thinking ahead, I have already planned and paid for my funeral.  It's amazing how many people won't even consider thinking about their deaths.  As you already know I have had many cats over the years.  As each one passed on, she was cremated and put in an urn and I now have 7 urns on my mantle.  Of course these urns mean nothing to anyone else but me.  I decided to have myself cremated and I bought a larger urn matching the ones on my mantle.  All of us are to be buried together in the same casket (which I have selected) in the Messer plot in the vacant spot next to my father.  No funeral.  Just a graveside service.  Weil Funeral Home has all this in their records so things should go as planned.  It's nice knowing that my final adventure is already planned and will be carried out the way I want it.

Steven Levinson

Becky (and John), Ira, Nancy, what can I say?  I love you guys.  You're truly special.  And Nancy, I think that you are a poster child for the healthy, grownup approach to death.  Being buried with one's dearly departed cats, next to one's father, in matching urns, is a wondrous image to contemplate.  Ira, if my earlier response to your utterly legitimate comment sounded like I was snapping at you, it isn't what I intended; I know and knew what you meant, and I appreciated it.

We are all aware that death is a subject much on our minds these days.  The website has made it possible for us to keep in touch regarding, among other things, what is important to us individually and collectively.  I'm so glad that we're now dealing with the Big One, wholly separate and apart from the sad occasions when we learn that one of us is unexpectedly gone.  There is such strength, maturity, experience, and wisdom in our class.  Most of us are very lucky people.  Let's stick together as long as we can.

Dale Gieringer

Steve,  I don't know what more to say to your distressing medical news, other than you sure have the right attitude.    Come to think of it, Virgil said it well:  sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt.  Cancer may be curable;  mortality not.  And so we paddle on, sursum ad ultimum summum.  

Philip Spiess

So, Dale, a quote not only from Virgil, but a paraphrase from Fitzgerald (F. Scott, not Edward) as well!  But perhaps, because I have suddenly been realizing just how quickly life flows (and, yes, even before this stream of posts) -- it really wasn't that long ago that we were all classmates together, was it? -- a quote of the final stanza of the latter Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat seems appropriate:

"And when like her, oh Saki, you shall pass / Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass, / And in your joyous errand reach the spot / Where I made One -- turn down an empty Glass!"

Judy Holtzer (Knopf)

Steve, when I was going through chemotherapy and radiotherapy, total strangers told me, ad nauseum, to "stay positive". I would think, "Well, of course! What else?" I may be 73, but still feel unfinished.

That said, since you are a man, instead of aiming for 80-something, I propose that you think of your fellow law-giver, Moses, and aim for 120 (Deuteronomy 34 1-12).

Refua shlema.

Laura Reid (Pease)

Steve, I am so sorry about your health issues.  Sorry you have to go through this but very hopeful for a positive outcome.  As voiced by our classmates, many have gone through similar situations and have told you of their good results...I pray that yours is the same.  This next decade will certainly try us all in different ways and it is good to know that we are here for each other.

By coincidence, the day you posted your health update, I met a couple who had just moved from Hawaii to southern FL, where I am now.  They are relatives of neighbors in our condo and about our age.  I mentioned your name and they knew "of" you, saying you were very well known with a stellar reputation.  And of course, I immediately mentioned Walnut Hills and they looked at me blankly, as they are Canadian.  Their names are Melinda and Brad White; I know she is a retired nurse; he only wanted to talk about his birds that he couldn't bring to the states from Hawaii.....have no idea what his occupation is.  But I wanted you to know how much they thought of you....

My very best to you Steve.

Steven Levinson

Thanks so much, Dale, Judy, and Laura.  Sursum ad ultimum summum it is.  Judy, I think I'll take a pass on 120, as I rather suspect my fellow law-giver did, too.  Laura, was Brad White a songwriter?  There are multiple links to "Melinda's Song" on Google, which a Brad White wrote with Pierre Grille, who ia a major Hawaii musician.

Sandy Steele (Bauman)

Steve, we were so sorry to hear about your health issues. Your positive outlook will take you a long way. I am a 19 year out cancer survivor, and although the C word changes your life, your attitude as a fighter goes a long way. We are in Florida this month, and one couple in our building, are both Holocaust survivors. She is 96 and he is 100! He is still driving, and someone rented them a car😊

Stephen (Steve) Dixon

I can't believe that I have been missing this whole 'face your ultimate mortality' discussion.

Here's to ya', Mr. Levinson, from a fellow Stage 4 prostate cancer guy. No surgery for me. Although I apparently had one of the biggest tumors in the Western Hemisphere, it was also dotted all through my prostate like raisins in a bowl of Raisin Bran. And the physical placement of everything would have made surgery just altogether too destructive.

So, since early 2016, I have been on various courses of treatment to shrink and/or halt the spread. It seems to be working. Statistically, I was supposed to have about 14-18 months to live, based on my particular situation. Obviously, I am going into my fifth year in a couple of months.

I get a monthly injection, in the belly and, then swallow numerous large pills every night (thank you Jello Pudding Cups!). And I'm doing okay. My eating is a little funky. More-and-more funky, in terms of things I cannot eat, because they irritate my throat or stomach. But I don't have that awful nausea that people on infusion chemotherapy typically experience.

Steve L., I understand completely what you mean about a shift in perspective when you realize, for sure, that you don't have 'forever' out there ahead of you. I found it a little bit freeing. I'm sure I won't outlive my money, that's one on the plus side.

I gradually began to relax and enjoy life on a much more immediate basis. Once I got everybody close to me to calm down and stop worrying about whether I was worried, or sad, we pretty much got busy with the business of being together as much as we can. I do all the hugging, and loving, and encouraging on my two grandchildren as I can manage. Based on today, I think I might see them both graduate from college (knock wood). Four years ago, that did not look likely.

A couple of years before I was diagnosed, I got all my brothers and our sister (she went to Walnut) to start doing a little 'Sibs Trip' once a year. Just a few days together to be us, to play games and talk about the old days. I got the idea because my oldest brother had lost his wife on Christmas Eve the year before. When we were up there (D.C.) for the funeral, I was looking around and thinking, "I don't want the next time we are all together for us to not ALL be together because one of us is dead."

They took some persuading, and the first couple of years it was like the Lonesome Dove guys herding a cattle drive. But everybody is eager for it now, and we have the most wonderful time every year.

As for the health prospects, it's really pretty funny when I go in for the monthly inoculation. They always look at me and say, "You look GOOD!" with a real note of surprise. It makes me laugh.

Please don't anybody take this the wrong way, it is not meant specifically to any person. Just flung out there at the Universe. One of my favorite quotes is the line that Papillon utters, over-and-over in the movie of the same name. It is his last line in the movie, as he clings to his coconut-shell raft:

"Hey, you bastards! I'm still here."

Steve D.
 

Judy Holtzer (Knopf)

Hi Steve D! 

Thank you for your wonderful posting. I think you have a fantabulous attitude. I am definitely going to try to persuade my sole sibling to try your "sibling day".....

Good luck and refua shlema (complete recovery).

Judy from Israel

Steven Levinson

Sandy, you are a real inspiration.  Hang in there.  Steve D., you take my breath away.  I won't outlive my miney either.  If I'm not mistaken, the belly injections and megapills are part of my future too.  Sadly, sib trips aren't, my youngest brother having died of leukemia in June 1968, three weeks short of his 16th birthday and six days before Lynn's and my wedding, and my middle brother having died in January 2010 at the age of 61, having fought MS for 30 years.  I should have tried harder with middle brother Henry, in Greensboro, N.C.  The distance from Honolulu was only virtual, after all.  I get as much grandkids' time as their busy schedules permit, and my son Josh and I are watching Duke basketball more often together.  God bless Dustin Hoffman (who I assume was the Papillon you're referring to).

Nancy Messer

Steve McQueen was Papillon.  Dustin Hoffman was Louis Dega.

Stephen (Steve) Dixon

You nailed it, Nancy, on the Papillon stars.

Steve L., I'm sorry you had the early losses in your family. We have been so lucky. My oldest brother is almost 15 years older than me and still doing very well, with the aid of a couple of new knees and that sort of thing.

I am the youngest of five and have pointed out to them during a couple of our gatherings that we are absolutely biblical; i.e. Matthew 20:16 "So, the last shall be first..."

Perhaps my biggest med is Xtandi. Big in terms of its importance but also because I get to swallow four very big, hard pills every night. It is an oral form of chemo that is geared to stopping my particular cancer from being able to reproduce outside itself. One day, the disease will figure out a way around that (evolution, you know) and then here it comes. We will see it in the PSA, which, since I have been on Xtandi, has come in at  <0.1. No testosterone in this body.

So I don't watch spooky, and/or throat-slasher movies. I don't want to jangle my atoms too much. I listen to a lot of Jazz, or DooWop when I want to get a little bounce in my step, and read. it's my version of Zen, without the difficult sitting positions.

Barbara Kahn (Tepper)

Yes Judy, I agree, Refua shlema

Prayers for healing and gratitude for being healed.  I love what you said, Of course you were positive as I was and Sandy was and Steve is now! We do the best with what we're dealt in life.  To me it's like being in line at the Deli Counter and when your number comes up it's your turn.  Here's hoping it is a very long line and a long time until they call our numbers.

Judy Holtzer (Knopf)

Hi Barbara! That was very sweet! Thank you and refua shlema to you also.

I must admit to being very shocked when I was called in to get the result of my biopsy. In the first place, I always thought of myself as low risk for breast cancer. No one closely related to me had had breast cancer, and three years in toto of breastfeeding further lowered my risk.  In the second place, I read that of all breast biopsies taken, only 20% were malignant. I even thought about going in by myself to hear the verdict, but then reconsidered and asked my brother to come with me since my sister-in-law had breast cancer in situ many years ago. Walking out of the Breast Center, I asked David a couple of times if this was a dream, and he very kindly offered to pinch me. Little brothers.....

My diagnosis was a good news/bad news sort of thing. The bad news was that it was triple negative breast cancer, for which the bottom line is that it's very difficult to treat. Hormones don't touch it since it didn't have hormone receptors. The good news was that it was caught very early (routine mammography) and the tumor was small. More good news from PET scan showed no nodes involved, no metastasis. 

I never hmmed or hawed consciously, but I guess on some lower level of consciousness decided that the good news outweighed the bad news, and that was that. Ever since, I have just plowed forward.

I remember when I was younger, how my Mom would really annoy me when she used the phrase "when I kick the bucket". G-d keep her, she lived in quite good health until over 90 and then the bucket finally fell over when she was 95. Now, I am appalled at how ill-prepared my children are for my demise. 

I am so often blown away by the amazing wisdom found on this forum, so if anyone has encountered this with his or her own children, I would really appreciate it if you would share. TIA

May we all be in good health. The almond trees are in full blossom here in Israel.

Judy Holtzer (Knopf)

Steven Levinson

Thanks, Nancy.  A dysleic moment.

Steve:  Xtandi may be what's part of my future.  Disconcertingly, my PSA, post-op, is 2.92.  I want that 0.001!

Barbara Kahn (Tepper)

 I would love to see the Almond trees Judy - are they good luck?  

What happened to me was very different from experiences of others.  I knew I was sick before the diagnosis but not how bad it was. We drove to Ohio to see family before I went to the doctor.  I wanted to make sure I saw my sister and her daughters with their children.  I was aware of the signs but didn't tell anyone until I had it confirmed medically.  From then on we didn't waste any time. It was all action and into surgery as soon as possible after the tests.  It's not necessary to go into details but the doctor told me right away after he couldn't complete the colonoscopy because the tumor was in the way. 

It was a long road but I never doubted recovery after 2 surgeries years apart.  My husband and I take turns having medical problems which out nicely.    Everyone was in a different place in their lives 5 years ago and I was younger.  Today the situation might not be the same but I've been so lucky that I optimistically expect it to continue.  

I like what you said about "plowing forward".  That's how I see it too.  Hoping for good health for us and strength for Steve to get through what lies ahead.