Archive for November, 2011

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evened

November 22, 2011

A few weekends ago, it was perfect outside. Jeff and I spent the day tooling around the Hirshhorn and National Gallery. At the Hirshhorn, I told him how Francis Bacon said he met his lover George Dyer when Dyer attempted to burglarize his home. It had been a long time since I last got to talk about about Francis Bacon with someone who didn’t know much about him but cared to hear about it.

Dean and Britta were performing 13 Most Beautiful …, their album of song tributes to some of the most stunning screen tests by Andy Warhol, at the Gallery. We slumped against the wall and shared a magazine while we waited in line, and he held my hand during their performance. I never listened to Luna, the band Dean and Britta previously played in together, somehow, though it seems like something I would have been very interested in being very into when I was in high school and college. Anyway, it’s just my thing. I love these songs.

Then we ate bar food and drank beer at the Red Derby. Jeff knows most of the bartenders there, and the server was reading US Weekly and reading interesting and hilarious bits from it out loud to us. After our meal, we went to see Ted Leo in a church basement. A lot of people I know through Clark were there. I walked in and was a coin that had been flipped. With tails facing up, the part of me who took care of Clark dwarfs the part who loves Jeff and dreamy music and art museums. I am struggling in my search for a balance.

 

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the ethicist

November 11, 2011

My boyfriend of one year has been given a diagnosis of terminal cancer. He has no family around, and I have been his primary caretaker. We had a wonderful relationship, but we had not discussed long-term plans, and his declining health has changed much between us. It is becoming harder for me to continue at this level. My desire to look after my own needs, personal and professional, and my guilt for feeling that I could be deserting him are becoming overwhelming. What is my responsibility? ANONYMOUS

“… though caring for a sick person can be exhausting, it can also be exhilarating, a chance to rise to your greatest potential, to mean more to another human being than you otherwise could. Strange as it may sound, your boyfriend’s illness could be the best chance you ever get to experience that. Don’t cast it — or him — aside. “

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dying words

November 3, 2011

Although the oncologists knew that they were being taped, in more than a quarter of the consultations the patients were not told that their disease was incurable; a similar percentage were not informed of the side effects associated with the proposed anti-cancer therapy. Only five patients of the hundred and eighteen — some four per cent — received what the researchers considered adequate information. In nearly ninety per cent of the taped discussions, the oncologists failed to ask the patients if they understood the information being presented to them. These results are in keeping with prior research indicating that more than a third of patients with incurable metastatic cancer believe that the treatment offered by their doctors will actually cure them.

From “Dying Words” by Dr. Jerome Groopman, published in the New Yorker in October 2002.

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