6 Months left to live...what would you do?

[Felonious Monk/Fignozzle]

Fellow gunners,
Let's do some creative visualization.

You've had a sore place in your lower abdomen for a couple of months now, and it's not going away.  In fact, it's getting worse.  Your wife/S.O. has noticed how you wince when you get up out of a chair, and she would just not take 'no' for an answer-- you're GOING to the doctor.

So, you go.  He pokes, prods, frowns, mumbles to himself, and says "I think we need to run some tests".
So, you go.  They stick, biopsy, prod, and tell you they'll call your Doc with the results.

A week goes by, and he calls you back into the office.  There, the news is like a baseball bat to the diaphragm: it's cancer, it's metastasized, surgery is not an option, and most people with the same diagnosis last between 4 and 8 months.

Besides getting your affairs squared away, and assuming you tire quickly but are otherwise mobile and capable of going and doing anything you choose, what is on your list of places to go, things to do? Sky diving? Rocky Mt. climbing? 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu?

What's your list?

[lupinus]

are we talking withen my means or all expenses paid?

[Felonious Monk/Fignozzle]

Realistic.  Within your means.

[Azrael256]

Appalachian Trail.  On foot.  With any luck I'll die in the middle of it.

[wingnutx]

go berzerk at the next pro-hezballah rally.

[Ron]

Probably the same thing I have done with most of my life.

Procrastinate

[Winston Smith]

For a few months do everything I've always wanted to do. Travel, charity, blow stuff up, etcetera.

Then do a lot of heroin.

[Guest]

Such a scenario was once presented to an Englishman, a Frenchman, and a Russian man with the only variance being that the time left was only 1 day.

The Englishman said he would walk his beloved terrier.

The Frenchman said he would drink a bottle of wine and watch the sun set.

The Russian, after confirming the time, simply said 'I will burn down my neighbors house'.

[doczinn]

Max out all the credit cards traveling.

[Guest]

Not to be a smartass, but shouldn't you be doing those things now (not including the credit card charging and the heroin use and/or burning down houses.)

So you get a tumor and you die in six months or tomorrow you die of a embolism or next week, you get hit by a semi. Live now, if you intend to live at all.

[Sindawe]

Besides getting your affairs squared away, and assuming you tire quickly but are otherwise mobile and capable of going and doing anything you choose, what is on your list of places to go, things to do? Sky diving? Rocky Mt. climbing? 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu?

Been there, done those already. Well, 'cept for part with the bull.  I'm crazy, not stupid.

The Russian, after confirming the time, simply said 'I will burn down my neighbors house'.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA  My thoughts exactly.

Six months to live before dying of terminal cancer?  'Prolly give free reign to the darker nature of my soul and do my utmost to take as many of my enemies (and anybody else who displeases me) with me to the grave.  After all, what are they gonna do, KILL ME?  That would be a blessing, I've watched friends die after being eaten alive by their cancers.

[Antibubba]

The idea of doing some house cleaning a la Sindawe is tempting, butif I do end up being judged after I die, that will be hard to bluff past.

I'd try to do something NO ONE else has ever done, which would most likely kill me, but. WOW!  What a splash!  (Take that word any way you want.)

For example, there's one hell of a wind at the top of Everest, right?  And any doofus can get a tour guide who'll take him up (maxxing off that Visa card here).   I'd go up with enough O2 to last the ascent, and a little more.  I'd also have a tank of hydrogen and a reinforced Mylar balloon and harness.

Yes, I'd FLY OFF OF EVEREST.  So what if Hydrogen is inflammable, or I fall, or I'm dashed against the rocks?  I'm going to die anyway.  If the wind takes me over China, do you think their fighters will shoot me down?  

[Guest]

Thread hits a nerve with me.
Too many folks have found out they have 2 days, 2 weeks or two months to live in my life.
This started early in my life and keeps happening.

My Mentors and Elders passed on a lot of stuff, and Barbara's post mirrors much of their take.

"Live like today is the last day of your life, it very well may be".

Everything from eating dessert first, to how one carries themselves, to never going to nap/ sleep with a spat left not resolved.


I die tonight, well let me see-

Today I called grampster, something I have been wanting to do. Helped a kid order something for their mom from LL Bean as a surprise. Helped that same kid do a load of laundry and showed her how I iron a shirt.

A lady friend and I had breakfast early, just took ham sandwiches and coffee and went out and watched the sun come up sitting in the bed of my truck. We tossed marshmellows to her dog and laughed ourselves silly watching him.  We made a salad for lunch, and got carried away, about the only thing we did not put in it was the kitchen sink, and Dr. Pepper.

We really wanted to do some other stuff together, but it was better to put a single shot back together we cleaned up, refinished wood on for a kid. Kid is going to be surprised, lady friend found this and ...somethings one does not for themeselves - instead for others.

Mentors did life this way, I wanted what they had, so I do as they did.

Try to best can each day anyways...

[Bob F.]

Fig: Not trying to tellus something, I hope!?

Barbara: Post some pic of yourself (actually, think I've seen a couple) but from this and other posts: you a helleva woman! Looker too, I think! (Don't worry, I'm married and never stray)

sm: same as usual.

Bob

[Devonai]

Get right with God, finish the third book in the trilogy I'm writing, and chase attractive women until I got bored with sex.

Wait a minute...

[Guest]

Bob, thanks. That was really nice.

[Tallpine]

Ride my horse a lot more often

[Harold Tuttle]

invest in Chianti and fava beans

[grampster]

1.  Have Devonai send me a copy of his 2nd book which is not published yet.  (I'll take photopies of the galleys, lad, you have my address.)

2.  Talk Larry Ashcraft into moving up the THR 2007 Ronnyvoo to next month.

3.  Talk sm into making it fer sure.

4.  Buy that $300.00 bottle of XO Cognac I've always wanted.

5.  Pick up my new candy apple red Harley FLHTC Electraglide Classic so I can ride it to the Ronnyvoo.
     
6.  Pick up .454 Casull and a shoulder rig so I can carry it on the Harley to the Ronnyvoo.

7.  Slowly motor my way to New Mexico, stopping along the way to read, sip on the cognac and "plink" with the Casull.  (not while I'm drinkin')

8.  Spend a good deal of time shooting everybody elses firearms for 3 days, sitting around a proper campfire and listening to tales spun late into the night.

[Fjolnirsson]

I'd have to echo Sindawe with the "darker side" comment. None of my killing would be personal, mind you.

[Guest]

Scientology would not be allowed to outlive me.

[BakerMikeRomeo]

The same thing I do every night, Pinky..

Uh..

A whole asspile of nothing, probably. I'd prolly bitch a whole lot about having to kick it so soon, but inwardly I'd note that I'd never do any of the stuff I said I'd want to do anyway. Bleah.

~GnSx

[Felonious Monk/Fignozzle]

Bob F., no hidden message.  Life's far too short for subtleties about such things.  Thanks for the concern, though!

Since I didn't provide my own answer, I'll do a quick inventory and see what hits the forefront of my consciousness:

I think I'd start out with a long drive.
Rent a nice car, take along some beautiful music, and take a slow drive up the Blue Ridge Parkway, stay at the Inn at the Peaks of Otter, and wind my way up to Skyline Drive.  

I'd take a notebook, a mini-cassette recorder, and maybe a camcorder as well.
I'd submit requests for locations of folks from APS, THR, and TFL to visit along the way, and make my peace with G-d.

I'd probably come home, learn to do some woodworking, and make a couple of trinkets for folks.  Maybe pick up my guitar again, something I used to love, but life sort of took priority and it went by the wayside.  Maybe write a story or two, something that at one point I thought would be my livelihood.

Watch a bunch of comedy movies, and pursue joy in simple things, whatever that looks like as time progresses.  Make my moments count.

[grampster]

It's pretty nice today in Michigan, Fig.  But,  just a little bit nicer because of your thread.

[lee n. field]

6 months.

Talk to each of the kids about serious stuff.  Unload some of my crap on them.  Buy a plot in the cemetary behind the church I grew up in, where ancestors of mine on my dad's side from the last century and a half or so are buried.  Track down some old friends I haven't talked to in a long time.  Make what arrangements I can for the wife.