Slow
Dance
This
is a poem
written by a teenager with cancer.
She wants to
see how many
people get her poem.
It is quite the poem
Please pass it
on.
This
poem was written by a terminally ill young girl in a
New York
Hospital.
It was sent
by
a medical doctor -
Make sure to read what is in the closing statement
AFTER THE
POEM.
SLOW DANCE
Have you ever
watched
kids
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to
the
rain
Slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a
butterfly's erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the
fading
night?
You better slow down.
Don't
dance so
fast.
Time is short.
The music
won't
last.
Do you run through each day
On
the
fly?
When you ask How are you?
Do you hear
the
reply?
When the day is done
Do you lie
in your
bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through
your head?
You'd better
slow down
Don't dance so
fast.
Time is
short.
The music won't
last.
Ever told your
child,
We'll do it
tomorrow?
And in your
haste,
Not see
his
sorrow?
Ever lost
touch,
Let a good
friendship die
Cause you
never had time
To call
and say,'Hi'
You'd
better slow down.
Don't dance
so fast.
Time
is short.
The music won't
last..
When you run
so fast to get somewhere
You
miss half the fun of getting
there.
When you worry and hurry
through your
day,
It is like an unopened
gift....
Thrown
away.
Life is not a
race.
Do take it
slower
Hear the
music
Before the song is
over.
------------
--------
FORWARDED
E-MAILS ARE TRACKED TO OBTAIN THE TOTAL
COUNT.
Dear All:
PLEASE pass this mail on to everyone you know -
even to those you don't
know! It is the request of a special girl who will soon
leave this world
due to cancer.
This young girl has 6 months left
to live,
and as her dying wish, she wanted to send a letter telling everyone to
live their life to the fullest, since she never will.
She'll
never make it to prom, graduate from high school,
or get married and have a
family of her own.
By you sending
this to as many people as
possible, you can give her and her family a
little hope, because with every name
that this is sent to, The American
Cancer Society will donate 3 cents per name
to her treatment and recovery
plan. One guy sent this to 500 people! So I know
that we can at least send
it to 5 or 6. It's
not even your money, just
your
time!
PLEASE PASS ON AS A LAST REQUEST.
10467
Dance
This
is a poem
written by a teenager with cancer.
She wants to
see how many
people get her poem.
It is quite the poem
Please pass it
on.
This
poem was written by a terminally ill young girl in a
New York
Hospital.
It was sent
by
a medical doctor -
Make sure to read what is in the closing statement
AFTER THE
POEM.
SLOW DANCE
Have you ever
watched
kids
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to
the
rain
Slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a
butterfly's erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the
fading
night?
You better slow down.
Don't
dance so
fast.
Time is short.
The music
won't
last.
Do you run through each day
On
the
fly?
When you ask How are you?
Do you hear
the
reply?
When the day is done
Do you lie
in your
bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through
your head?
You'd better
slow down
Don't dance so
fast.
Time is
short.
The music won't
last.
Ever told your
child,
We'll do it
tomorrow?
And in your
haste,
Not see
his
sorrow?
Ever lost
touch,
Let a good
friendship die
Cause you
never had time
To call
and say,'Hi'
You'd
better slow down.
Don't dance
so fast.
Time
is short.
The music won't
last..
When you run
so fast to get somewhere
You
miss half the fun of getting
there.
When you worry and hurry
through your
day,
It is like an unopened
gift....
Thrown
away.
Life is not a
race.
Do take it
slower
Hear the
music
Before the song is
over.
------------
--------
FORWARDED
E-MAILS ARE TRACKED TO OBTAIN THE TOTAL
COUNT.
Dear All:
PLEASE pass this mail on to everyone you know -
even to those you don't
know! It is the request of a special girl who will soon
leave this world
due to cancer.
This young girl has 6 months left
to live,
and as her dying wish, she wanted to send a letter telling everyone to
live their life to the fullest, since she never will.
She'll
never make it to prom, graduate from high school,
or get married and have a
family of her own.
By you sending
this to as many people as
possible, you can give her and her family a
little hope, because with every name
that this is sent to, The American
Cancer Society will donate 3 cents per name
to her treatment and recovery
plan. One guy sent this to 500 people! So I know
that we can at least send
it to 5 or 6. It's
not even your money, just
your
time!
PLEASE PASS ON AS A LAST REQUEST.
10467
WHERE
Spike the Warthog!
LIES IN COMFORT AT NIGHT!
Hi Bridget,
I thought you’d appreciate this!! It’s quite a hoot really!! Where but in Africa!!
Love, Sheilah
Mike Taylor wrote:
Many years ago in my Youth we had one at Kariba army barracks that use to come for beers. He’d knock a bottle over, drink it and stagger around for a while and then come for more. He was as tame as a dog.
I had an email from a friend in Zimbabwe yesterday and she sent me this picture and story that I thought was delightful. They had been away at a game park and on the first evening while sitting in front of the fire in the bar, in walked a fully grown wart hog. He walked over to the bar and without a word the bar man handed him a pillow. He took the pillow, put it next to the fire and promptly lay down with his head on the pillow and went to sleep where, apparently, he spends the cold nights. Then in the morning, he's off into the bush again! My friend says that if the barman isn't there he will grab a pillow off one of the couches!
Here he is:
Here he is:
WELL SPIKE HAS ORGANISED HIS WINTER NIGHTS - HASN'T HE?
HOW INTELLIGENT ARE PIGS?
In German they have a saying to express the idea that the world is in order there, which translates like this: "Where the fox and the hare say good night to each other." Wh in this case would be "where the pig lies in comfort at night!"
DO YOU HAVE BETTER CAPTION FOR THIS STORY?
SEND ME YOUR SUGGESTIONS, FOR A BETTER CAPTION. I WILL CHANGE THE TITLE AFTER THE END OF JULY TO WHICH EVER TITLE SEEMS TO BE THE BETTER ONE!
Love,
Bridget
________________________________________________________________________________
A BIT ABOUT TOM, MY DARLING HUSBAND AND HOW WE MET
AND THE JOURNEY WE ARE TAKING AT THE MOMENT!
Tom met me at sequence dancing one Saturday night at about 9pm in February last year and proposed to me the next morning at 8am! I will never understand what happened at the meeting, but he knew, but knew that I was the one for him. I was not convinced at first, but he slowly changed my opinion. He knew within 30 minutes of meeting me that I had breast cancer, at the time I thought I was healing.
Three months later, when I had already accepted his proposal to marry him, I discovered that the cancer had increased and I told him, to please leave me and get on with his life without me. As I could not expect him to stick around with me and before I had someone who felt obliged to stay, I would prefer to be on my own. His reply was, “I want to spend every last minute of the time we have left together with you.”
I still was not convinced, but he wanted to stay and so we continued on our planning and then began to make concrete plans for our wedding, which took place 25.9.10. Jenny came to be with us for a month before the wedding. BUT, the cancer had taken a hold in several places in my body. The pain I was experiencing in my lower back increased and made the move from Tauranga to Tirau nearly impossible for me to carry out. We managed somehow, but shortly after, bone and CT scans confirmed the cancer in the spine in L1 – L4, intense cancer in L3 veering to the right, on the right hip cusp, in some ribs, L shoulder, breast, lymph nodes, liver lesions. Anyway enough places to satisfy the reason for increasing pain, mainly in my sciatic nerve.
They suggested I do some radio therapy on L3 and the hip to try to stop some of the pain. This was meant to tide me over for 3 months. It did not even hold 3 weeks. The day Jenny arrived from Germany my legs collapsed on me and from then onwards I could only walk with crutches. So 8 days before our wedding, my foot was suddenly numb one morning – a warning sign. I had to enter hospital and it was decided to give me radio therapy on the spine only. 3 shots of it. They had to keep me for a further 3 days, because I was in so much pain that even morphine was at first not helping.
So I came out of hospital the Tuesday before our wedding on the Saturday, completely disoriented with pain, lost in trying to get thoughts to be coherent. Completely lost in what was happening or not happening to my body. I had no strength to hold my spine up. It was like a big jelly wobble, nothing supporting it. If I lost control for a second, the vertebrae would jar on the nerves and I would scream in agony. It was impossible NOT to scream, although I think this only happened once. I did not know Tom and Jenny could shoot out of nowhere to be next to me so quickly! But suddenly they were both there, helpless to help, but wanting to be at my side.
Lying in bed without the power to move the bottom section of my body at all. The only way to move in bed was firstly with the aid of the bed lever and if I actually wanted to move my bottom section, I would have to grab my undies and tug with my hands to wherever I wanted this part of my body to be.
Getting out of bed was a triumph of will power. To get from horizontal to perpendicular was a slow procedure, one millimetre at a time, trying the whole time not to let any vertebrae jar any nerves. First the legs slowly over the side, letting them flop slowly towards the ground - levering with my hands and arms on the bed lever, slowly moving upwards.
The next challenge was to grab my crutches and get off the bed and onto the crutches and use my legs. This meant bracing my torso to try and lengthen the spinal column as much as possible, using my crutches to try and gain space. This was a huge challenge for some months. Each time it became easier. I no longer have the bed lever, I got rid of it about 3 or 4 months ago now.
One day, I no longer needed the crutches and discovered that using my Alpine sticks for walking around on the farm was as easy as, if not more easy.
Subjects that needed overcoming:
How to control bowel & bladder, when all the muscles have been killed off?
Physiotherapy
Swimming to strengthen my body and get some fitness.
Obtaining autonomy and allowing Tom his freedom
Expecting a healing
All the methods of eating, preparing food and growing organic products
Finding a way to pay for all these products
Accepting that I will lose friends who do not agree with what I am doing for myself.
Trying to find a compromise between keeping all my problems to myself and talking about things openly.
So how DOES Tom cope with our situation?
Is Tom alright? Short answer: no, not really. At the moment he has a touch of bronchitis, which seems worse on some days and other days better. You see he smokes, probably not much (probably about 6-10 self-rolled cigs daily?), but even not much for someone with emphysema is NOT Good.
Tom had an accident about the age of 25 on a farm and ruined his back completely – resulting in Ankylosing Spondylitis – curvature of the spine with ‘welded’ vertebrae. So he is a skinny little guy now, who probably is about 5’6” and aged 75, having come down from a strapping 6’2” man.
If you imagine that the back is curving forward and his nose is basically pointing towards his bellybutton, then you have the picture of how his body is now set. This means he has a restriction in his breathing capacity. Due to the curve, there is not much room for the lungs to expand and contract. Now add to this the emphysema, which means there is a reduction of the oxygen entering the body for use, because the lung capacity is compromised, the alveoli are partially blocked/non-functioning. Then you have the picture of how little oxygen Tom is probably receiving.
You probably think I am mad saying to Tom one day, “I have decided that you should officially smoke, as this subterfuge smoking in your work room is ridiculous." (He cannot smoke in the house, as I really need to try to keep the air I breath clean.) "I know you smoke and you need to own it. In fact, I feel you need to do whatever you want to do, if it is what makes you happy, calms your nerves. Because, I no longer want to sound like a mistuned violin, constantly on at you about what you should not be doing. You know what is good for you and if you choose to do this, because it calms your nerves and helps you to get through the days when things are difficult with me, then I feel you should do this. If this means you die faster, then so be it. At our ages and our states of health, we should just be thinking of how we get through our days with as little friction and be able to enjoy ourselves as much as possible. If we die a few weeks earlier due to what we do, but should not be doing, then it was a choice we made to make our lives bearable or just more fun!”
So since then I have to watch my darling husband suffering more than I suffer, due to the helplessness he must encounter each day. It is hard to know that he smokes because of my illness. He gave it up instantaneously, when he first met me, as I told him “That’s A DISGUSTING HABIT!!” But, when things began to get seriously bad with me, one week before we got married, he began to smoke again. Habits started at 14 and carried on until you are 74, die hard in a crisis!
