22 November 2010

A Bucket List...

There is nothing like hearing the diagnosis from your doctor, terminal! I am sure there are plenty of things that run through one's mind in the immediate aftermath of knowing that the time frame remaining on your life is definitely much shorter than you had been figuring on. So, what to do with the time one has left?

Dave Ismay was diagnosed with terminal cirrhosis of the liver. The terminal part was three months to live.

Ismay is well-known around Britain as a comedian and because of his work at the Aston Villa Football Club. But, at 64 Ismay realised there were a stack of things that he had not done that he really would like to take a stab at before pulling up stumps and going to the big football club in the sky.

Remembering the movie with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, Ismay decided to make a "bucket list" and list all the things he needed to get done. These included buying a Mercedes and taking a trip to Australia.

Nevertheless, in between planning his demise and passage to the eternal life of the ever-after, Ismay began to wonder about how a non-drinker manages to get cirrhosis of the liver, particularly the terminal kind. Ismay's research began to suggest that even he, a one-time 60-cigarette per day smoker, was not a likely candidate for cirrhosis.

Probably the most interesting part of this story is that Ismay kicked his smoking habit with the aid of hypnosis. According to Ismay he made a trip to Florida from his home in the UK and sort an intervention of the hypnotic kind to rid him of his smoking habit. He did that when he was 40-years-old. He is now a sprightly 64-years-old.

Despite his concerns about the diagnosis, it was eight weeks before the doctors called to say "good news, you are not terminal with cirrhosis of the liver!" Ismay had a much more manageable condition known as haemochromatosis. Haemochromatosis is essentially iron overload. The body absorbs too much iron out of your dietary intake and overloads your system.

Haemochromatosis is generally not fatal. But, it does involve one parting with lots of blood in order to strip the body of the excess iron.

Well, now that Ismay knows that his death is not imminent, is he going to continue with his bucket list?

No comments: