I realized that I haven’t posted in the longest time ever just when I thought I was doing so well before too! The past few weeks have been pretty crazy for me….I’ve been worrying about the same old things over and over and over again…… but that’s for another post!
Today I just wanted to drop by and write about a rare cancer called Mesothelioma that affected someone I loved. Last week in my bio class we were on the Air and Air pollution chapter throughout the whole week and my professor was talking about carcinogens, air pollution, and that’s when mesothelioma came up and he started talking about how its caused by too much exposure to asbestos. Although I couldn’t remember what my grandpa neighbor had before he passed away, I remembered the name right away during class when it was mentioned. Of course I couldn’t fully concentrate in class after all of this started coming back to me. Before we moved, we had this really cute, friendly, generous, elderly couple who we were lucky enough to live next door to for about 18 years. They were always the giving type of people who would bring things over for us especially food, presents, even money on our birthdays, holidays, just cause they felt like it, to buy ice cream, and other things. They just spoiled my family so much especially my siblings and I. About a year and a half ago, we went to visit our old neighbors and that’s when I remember seeing grandpa neighbor looking really fragile and he also loss a lot of weight at the time. He was a really tall man, he was pretty fit but not skinny at all, and he was healthy and rarely got sick before his diagnosis. And about a month or two later we went to visit them again and our Grandma neighbor told us that grandpa neighbor went to the hospital and that’s when we heard the news about our grandpa neighbor being diagnosed with mesothelioma at a pretty late stage. I remember Grandma neighbor mentioning that grandpa neighbor used to work in construction for a school district and back then the buildings had asbestos in them therefore he was exposed to too much of it and now it was affecting his lungs. Grandpa neighbor was working in construction for quite some time, i’m guessing about 45 years ago? but they don’t develop symptoms for mesothelioma until about 20-50 years later according to my Google research. This affected his health suddenly and quickly to the point where it took control of his body and when he was diagnosed it was already at a late stage where there was a low possibility for a cure. It’s more of a long term diagnosis cancer than short term. Apparently grandpa neighbor got to go home for a few days before going back to the hospital because they had to give him medicine and keep an eye on him. If I can remember properly, I think he was in the hospital for about a month before grandma neighbor told us that they were getting ready to move him to a nursing home I think, so that someone could take care of him. We didn’t get a chance to go visit him while he was at the hospital and I feel so regretful because of this. He was there to visit me when I was at the hospital but I didn’t get to go visit him when he was there. i feel so guilty. we were gonna go visit him once he moved into the nursing home but he passed away at the hospital before that. I’m regretful to the point where being there would’ve just cheered him up, gave him some encouragement, and showed him that we loved and cared about him and it was also the VERY LAST TIME for us to see him in person. I know Im never gonna forget this regret-fullness and guilt for the rest of my life but our grandpa neighbor is always so generous and understanding that I know that he knows that we all love and care about him very much. He was seriously one of the most important people to me in my life including my families. He couldn’t have been any better as a neighbor, a friend, and a grandpa neighbor to me and my family because he was already beyond the best.
They say that its always the nice, caring, generous,….the best people in the world who end up passing away and not the ones that deserve to. This shows just how corrupted mother earth could be at times…..but then again…people say “things happen for a reason.”
Earlier this year grandma neighbor moved and lives closer to her daughter now so that they could visit her often and take care of her. I miss her a lot and can’t wait to go out there and visit her before the holidays!!
and I’m ending this post with a very meaningful picture that is worth more than money to me…its priceless.
and there it is….this was taken last year, I think the day before Christmas when we went to visit them…its the last picture I have with my FAVORITE GRANDPA NEIGHBOR is the whole wide world!!!
I shouldn’t take the time I have with my love ones for granted…..
