As had been expected, I have increasingly difficult times communicating. Some times I feel I'm just waiting to die, but then its like what if I'm supposed to do one last thing. Although I cannot fathom what it might be. Waiting and waning as my skills are fading. It is rarely a sad wait, more of a ‘oh well.’ The funny thing about all this is I came to terms with all of this relativity quick. When I went though the surgery I immediately got up and tried to recover. That isn't to say I had no frustrations, but I mostly viewed them as telling me where I had made a mistake. Just about every day in inpatient rehab the therapists came and got us in our wheelchair and brought us to the gym. Once I learned how to walk, I every day walked to the gym and was waiting, especially since I learned that if I stay active enough they would let me go off the injections of heparin in the stomach. After spending a month in inpatient rehab therapy I went to radiation treatment for one hour once a weekday for six weeks. Then I went to outpatient rehab every two to three days. Since then I have made significant outcomes. Now I am in hospice, waiting. I have a team of four hospice workers. A nurse, social worker, hospice aide, and a chaplain. Apparently the nurse has never encountered a double port so she has some research to do. That is not uncommon. The social worker is the one I know the least. The aide helps me primary with hygiene. The chaplain comes by once a week and I don't know what she is to do with me expect for getting my life but I guess we have a good time of it. I would think things would change, but that is how it is going now. Waiting until things change.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Waiting
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
What I Believe About Death
Some people have asked what I believe about death. I could answer that I have no idea. But that's a little too simplistic of an answer. It is true: I have no idea what will happen. And I look forward to finding out. Now that I can't learn much more here, it is what I look forward to; although I worry about what I have forgotten to write. I do hope that something resembling the Christian faith is true. I consider myself an Agnostic with a bit of Probability, Truth, and Uncertainty (as in the Certainty Series), and with a strong Christian bent.
I pray that if there is a God, he will help me listen and be strong, and I pray various prayers for others. I have realized that there's tons of prayers I have just for people I know, and that it's kind of unfair to be praying for only the people I know, so I’ve shifted to a prayer about the world. I often pray just after going to bed go to bed when I'm pretty tired and spacey. But maybe it's better that way, in that I’m more “in tune.”
But all that doesn't answer the main question: will I be awake after death, and if so where. And I don't have the slightest idea. But if the Christian faith is correct, I believe I’ll “sleep” until the final resurrection, after with I'll enter the afterworld. In this paragraph let us assume that the Christian faith is true. Given my reading of the Synoptic Gospels, I believe Jesus would not turn down a man such as me. A couple of the men such as me were among the Twelve Apostles. See Thomas.
C.S. Lewis believed that the seriousness with which a person seeks the answers has the most significance. I think this position was made more or less clear in Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain, and Miracles, although I don't recall reading more than The Problem of Pain.
So if the Christen God is true, I believe that I will enter the “afterlife” what ever that may be.
It's difficult to write nowadays so this will become more difficult and interesting as I fade. My mother is helping me more and more. This is great but also I don't have my true voice, she can figure it out but it's more filtered through her words.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Two Projects
I have to say that my personal communication skill is declining every day, but my comprehension is not declining as fast. I would like to see (many ones holpfully) someone through programing my two important projects. I uses NetBeans for JDasher (http://code.google.com/p/jdasher/), and I'm pretty much on my own. It is a “steering with mouse” port from the C. Java App demo to a fully Java Application, because that's all I knew, but now I hope make it Maven. I would like it to be a I would like to make it add I would like to see it is in allotment of refacing. At is core any a lot of attempted direct C ports. In like to get it out of there. The systems of eviniremets and events are very consulting liked to together, making it a paining in the but. The second project is JFugue (http://www.jfugue.org/), “an open-source Java API for programming music without the complexities of MIDI”. While there's a mantainer and servatival committers my committership will be lost. I have been using Eclipse and thinking about using IntelliJ IDEA. I have been experimentally using Scala (a programing language that complies into JVM) to write a parser and factory's.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Morphine & such
I was Tuesday prescribed a long release morphine and I would get to meet my hospice care nurse on Thursday. Mid-morning Wednesday I suddenly got very tired and very dizzy. So Mom called hospice and they sent the nurse early and she said it was probably my bodies way of getting used to the morphine and I would probably feel better the next day. She went though the things that we were supposed to the next day. Which consisted of, among other things, ordering a comfortable hospital bed and getting me set up with an external catheter. The nice thing about that is I wake up several times a night with an urgent need to go and sometimes don't make it. Oops! Also, I had and appointment with my dear friend from undergrad who turned out to know the nurse.
Some Final Words
If I send this out now, I might think of more final thoughts later, and what would I do then? So this may be a series, but it may not. And as the cancer progresses I may no longer have the facilities to check what I have already said. This could be interesting. First, I have at times thought I wasn't really inspiring people as much as they said I was. But I've gotten so much mail about how I've inspired specific people that there is no longer any doubt. Thank you all. This is a great way to go out. I hope you continue to spread my message after I'm gone (http://tinyurl.com/3kov3zq or http://tinyurl.com/3gbkem7). Second, I wanted to share with you some personal thoughts. One of the things I've missed the most was an opportunity to have a family: a wife, one child. I have been blessed to have Academy Schools as a surrogate. But it's not the same, and it lacks the wife. Although I often think my cat considers herself as my demanding wife. Some things that bother me are only a problem because I’m bothered by them. I will die a virgin, and the thing that bothers me most about that is that I am bothered by that. I would much prefer it if I where not interested in women sexually. Even before all of this, it was a distraction from my studies. Some how it's getting worse as I come closer to dieing. Maybe some doctor can give me a pill for that. And finally, I wish I had been bolder. I missed some great opportunities growing up because I was afraid. Only later in my life did I finally take charge. Reach for the stars, and don't be afraid of not reaching them. I bet you'll get farther than you thought, and life's all about the journey. That is what I learned in the months before my diagnosis, and since then. There are a number of things I want to say but due to my fading communication skills I cannot get out. It's frustrating being once a affluent teacher and watching communication skills deteriorate. At the same time, due to my tumor's placement, having my incoming communication relatively intact except for my ability to concentrate.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Hospice
I had my hospice consultation today. The most immediate effect is I will immediately be put on delayed release morphine every twelve hours. I had thought that morphine would make me tired and not able to concentrate but the nurse said that the delayed effect usually makes that better. She said that a physical therapist would be coming to our house and checking out what assistive equipment I have and get me anything I lacked. Also I would meet the nurse that would come to my house once a week or as needed. Although it's to bad she won't be that nurse, as she was very nice, had a soothing voice, and is cute! My team will consist of four people: nurse, social worker, hospice aide, and chaplain.
Friday, August 19, 2011
My Message
All my life I have faced difficulties including ADD, Tourette syndrome, OCD, and Asperger syndrome, but I, with the help of my parents and others, managed to deal with them. I discovered a talent for teaching, especially students with disabilities of their own. I believe the process of going through my disabilities strengthened me.
I attended the University of Washington, majoring in mathematics and minoring in linguistics. I then went to UC Davis to study for my PhD in mathematics, planning on becoming a professor. However at the end of the first quarter I was diagnosed with brain cancer. I didn't get to take finals because I had to have brain surgery. After surgery I could not speak, write, or move my right side. I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to teach again. The doctors didn't expect me to get better but I did.
When the next school year was approaching I said, “I'm going back to school.” People thought I was crazy. I didn't expect to do well, or even make it though the first quarter, but felt I had to try. I made it though almost a full school year with decent grades before my health got worse. Reach for the stars, and I bet you'll get farther than you thought. I learned a lot and also learned to redefine my definition of teaching.
I came back home. A private school named Academy Schools where I worked during college created an award named the Joshua Gooding Award For Perseverance. I gave a speech at the end of each year and then handed the awards to two students. This year will likely be the last, but my mother will take over my duties.
In those speeches I mainly talked about the importance of education. I talked about how I and the students could not have been successful without support. In my last one I talked about how many people around the world don't have that support, and asked my audience to help support education, and to pass my message along.
One thing I left out of the speeches were general human rights, and I was just the other day remined of that by a friend who has been sitting out in the protests that are going on in Israel. I believe a civilization cannot truly thrive without human rights. One of these is education, but there are more: heath care, shelter, and many others. The founding fathers stated clearly in the Declaration of Independence that life is a basic human right. Even if you don't believe
the poor have “earned” it, it's in your best interest to help bear the costs of providing for them.
A healthy population is good for all of us. It prevents the spread of disease and makes people more productive. Some people say ER's are universal health care. I have spent much time in the ER, and believe me, it's not universal heath care. ER's are wonderful places, where lives are saved; but they are terrible places where there is too much crowding and the wait can literally kill. Why this wait? Because of Americans who think it's universal health care. It costs just a fraction of the amount to go early on to a doctor's appointment for something that may eventually develop into a condition that will need to be seen in the ER because someone doesn't have health insurance. So you might be in a car wreck or have a stroke and wait for ten hours before they get to you.
Shelter is a basic human right. Even in a tent. The homeless have to live somewhere, or they can't live anywhere, violating their right to life. But so many people say “not in my back yard” that it becomes illegal to be homeless. They say that the homeless can stay in homeless shelters, forgetting the inconvenient fact that most of the homeless shelters are absolutely packed full. In Seattle, and I'm sure many other cities, it is illegal to camp anywhere in the city. There's a church that allows the homeless to camp on their parking lot. But the city occasionally raids the place taking machetes to cut open the tents and destroying the homeless' belongings.
There are of course many other human rights that I only give a few examples. So I ask you, please go out and do something. And while I'm here and after, spread my message to all you can. You can get this in Google Documents at http://tinyurl.com/3kov3zq.