Piggs, I don’t know if you remember Randy Pausch, a brilliant professor of computer animation, who died at the age of 47 of pancreatic cancer after holding out for 22 months after a debilitating surgery while undergoing intermittent chemotherapy. When he delivered his “Last Lecture” in September 2007, a tradition at Carnegie Mellon University, where he taught, he caused an internet sensation. Diane Sawyer subsequently did a full-hour special on him on 20/20 (4th link). I followed his online journal until his death and bought a few copies of his book, “The Last Lecture.”
Here’s a video on Pausch’s professional legacy, “Alice.”
In 2008, Randy had a spouse and 3 children under the age of 5, so as a “last-ditch effort” to buy some more time, he signed up for a “clinical trial” at MD Andersen Cancer Center in TX. He soon realized it wasn’t helping, its side-effects were making him very sick and so went home to enroll in hospice.
My younger sister, wildly successful, was cut down in 2007 in the prime of her life 10.5 months after diagnosis of a similar cancer to Pausch. Grabbing at straws, she underwent every form of grueling chemotherapy available to her with no guarantees of any success. Both she and Pausch lived in close proximity to one another and had the finest doctors and medical care in the country available to them but this didn’t matter. The same age as Pausch, my sister would have been 50 years old yesterday.
I just feel that we can’t control everything and we can’t choose our fate. We just have to accept what happens to us or our loved ones. Money can’t fix everything and death is a part of life. This young man was a shining example of acceptance and living his remaining life to the full . . . an inspiration to all!
