In Control: A Cancer Victim Describes His Struggle to Gain Control of the Mind and the BodyAs the president of a successful civil engineering, land surveying, and land planning firm in Connecticut, Frederick A. Hesketh was a professional who had everything, including a wife of thirty-three years, who had survived her own bout with cancer eight years earlier, and five mature children whose flight from the nest had left an opportunity for travel and new experiences. The tranquility of the empty nest was shattered, as if by a hurricane, when Fred was diagnosed with an invasive bladder cancer in June of 1992. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 3 | |
| 9 | |
| 17 | |
The Explanations | 25 |
Darker Than Usual | 35 |
The Procedure | 65 |
Medical Consultations | 75 |
The Decision | 91 |
The Reaction | 103 |
God Is My Refuge On My Day Of Distress | 111 |
Chemotherapy And Radiation | 119 |
Consolidation | 125 |
Three For Two Then Six For Three | 129 |
In Control | 145 |
Common terms and phrases
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Popular passages
Page 134 - How shall I make a return to the LORD for all the good he has done for me? The cup of salvation I will take up, and I will call upon the name of the LORD. R.
Page 134 - For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. I walk before the LORD in the land of the living. I kept my faith, even when I said, "I am greatly afflicted"; 1 said in my consternation, "Everyone is a liar.
Page 108 - ... our illness was a manifestation of our inadequacy. There was the fear that decisions were being made behind our backs, that not everything was made known that we wanted to know, yet dreaded knowing. There was the morbid fear of intrusive technology, fear of being metabolized by a data base, never to regain our faces again. There was resentment of strangers who came at us with needles and vials — some of which put supposedly magic substances in our veins, and others which took more of our blood...
Page 108 - ... was the reluctance to be thought a complainer. There was the desire not to add to the already great burden of apprehension felt by one's family; this added to the isolation. There was the conflict between the terror of loneliness and the desire to be left alone. There was the lack of self-esteem, the subconscious feeling perhaps that our illness was a manifestation of our inadequacy. There was the fear that decisions were being made behind our backs, that not everything was made known that we...
Page 108 - And there was the utter void created by the longing — ineradicable, unremitting, pervasive — for warmth of human contact. A warm smile and an outstretched hand were valued even above the offerings of modern science, but the latter were far more accessible than the former.
Page 134 - He is near who upholds my right; if anyone wishes to oppose me, let us appear together. Who disputes my right? Let that man confront me. See, the Lord GOD is my help; who will prove me wrong? The word of the Lord. of the living. R. Alleluia. I love the LORD because he has heard my voice in supplication, because he has inclined his ear to me the day I called R.
Page 134 - Gracious is the LORD and just; yes, our God is merciful. The LORD keeps the little ones; I was brought low, and he saved me.
Page 135 - LORD. 18I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people, '''in the courts of the house of the LORD, in your midst, O Jerusalem.
Page 134 - For he has freed my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. I shall walk before the Lord in the land of the living...