Opinion: The Words Every Dying Person Needs to Hear

One of the worst things about it is the loneliness

Photo byTima Miroshnichenko on Pexels

It was 2018, and I was 26 years old at the time. For years, doctors had been trying to get to the bottom of some breathing issues I had. I’d already been administered every allergy test available, and I underwent a sinus surgery to improve airflow through my nasal passage. But still, I was prone to getting bronchitis, having shortness of breath, and, even with daily physical exercise, I had the lung capacity of someone double my age. My primary doctor finally decided to set me up for a chest X-ray.

The actual X-ray appointment was overseen by a different doctor. I remember as he looked at the results a pallor rushed over his face. All his facial features dropped as his eyes widened. He didn’t tell me anything that day but set up an appointment between me and my primary doctor for the following day.

My primary came in with an air of somberness that I had never seen from him before. He’s one of those smiley people, with defined crow’s feet, who laughs at everything. That day he seemed like a different man. He looked at the X-ray results, and back at me, with an expression of frustration and confusion. He asked, “Have you ever been exposed to asbestos?” I answered, “Not that I know of.”

He told me that it looked like there was a tumor in the pleura of my lung. If so, it was a likelihood that I had mesothelioma. I looked it up later in the day and learned that it’s one of the deadliest forms of cancer, with a five-year survival rate of only 10%. He told me that we would have to do a follow-up and that I should go to a medical center that was about an 8-hour drive from there. “All the doctors in Miami are just in it for the money. Go to the Mayo Clinic,” he said. He didn’t charge me for my visit that day.

As I left with the news, I was shaken. I pictured myself wasting away into nothing over the years to come. I thought about leaving my girlfriend so that she wouldn’t have to stay by my side and witness my slow degradation. Let her remember me as I am now, I thought.

The other thing I felt then was a feeling that has stuck with me ever since. As I drove home, I thought, Nobody else around me knows. All these people driving alongside of me in their cars are all going on with their regular days. Right then, I began to feel completely alone in a way I never had before. It was like God had shone a spotlight down on me and only me. I was the one selected to slowly die, and everyone else would go on to live a full life, to care about the things I used to care about, and like a fish pulled up out of a stream, I was just to watch it all continue on without me.

A few days later, I went and had the follow-up my doctor had recommended. They performed an MRI to get a better look at what had shown up on the X-ray. As it turned out, my lungs were fine. I had developed a random cartilage growth on one of my ribs that, with less sophisticated imaging technology, looked identical to a tumor in the lining of the lung. The cartilage growth is harmless. You can imagine my relief.

A year later, I would get a message from my mom — who I hadn’t spoken to for the better part of a decade. Without knowing about the experience detailed above, she said that a growth had shown up on her spine, in the area of her throat, and it was threatening to close off her windpipe if it grew any larger. It would have to be removed by way of a risky surgery. She was terrified that she wouldn’t make it.

She had messaged me a number of times over the years, but after I cut ties with her as a teenager, I never responded to any of them. I broke the silence then for the first time in years. I told her emphatically, “You’re not alone. We love and care about you. We see what you’re going through, and we’re in it with you.” That was exactly what I wished someone would have said to me when I thought I was having my own brush with death, and she seemed calmed by it. Her surgery went off without a hitch, and today she’s perfectly healthy.

Ever since I spent those few days and sleepless nights thinking that I was on my way to an early grave, I’ve been grateful for the experience. I have no idea what it’s like to actually have to fight that battle when the diagnosis turns out to be accurate, but that misdiagnosis gave me a slight insight into what it must feel like, at least in the first days.

When we’re on the outside looking in — when we’re the spouse, family member, friend, or even acquaintance of someone going through such a harrowing experience — we’re often at a loss for words. It’s no wonder why: When we’re leading our regular lives, we complain about getting stuck in traffic, or that the waiter got our order wrong, or that our neighbors make too much noise. When we think our life is about to be taken from us, everything else in the world goes quiet. Even though you’re still alive, it feels like you’re already on a different plane of existence.

Everyone who is going through this deserves to be reminded that, if they are destined to leave us, they haven’t left yet, and that we’ll be there right up until the end. We may be unable to do anything about what they’re facing, but we can choose to face it together. We should let them know that we’re there for them, and not just in a practical and supportive way (though that as well). We should let them know we see them, we feel with them, that our life has stopped too — even if just for a moment — and we’re here to hold them by the hand and look directly into that scary abyss together.

To anyone going through something of the sort: You’re not alone.