“James, I have got bad news and not so bad news. Which one do you want first?”
Dr Tope and I go way back. We ran around the yards shirtless and in shorts during the hot summers of our youth. Went to different universities but always kept in touch since our parents lived across the street from each other and never left the old neighborhood. So on holidays, we still hung around together trying not to get into any trouble that may vaguely turn into a felony. He became a doctor and I became an engineer.
So his direct approach is to be expected. He wasn’t my primary care physician (PCP) or GP as it’s known in the UK. But after a lot of tests requested by my PCP came back with nothing and I still felt something was wrong, I reached out to him.
Me (James): “Bad news first”.
Tope: “Your cancer is terminal. You are going to die, but so is everyone – it’s just a matter of time.”
I can assure you Dr Tope has top notch bedside manner with his patients, but since he’s basically my brother (from another mother), he knows I prefer the direct approach.
Me: “And the not so bad news?”
Tope: “With the right combination of therapies, we could get you another couple of years – maybe even 4 at the extreme”
The room was dead silent for a minute.
For some reason I found myself not looking at him, it was almost as if I was in the room by myself. I hyper focused on the painting on the wall behind him. I had seen that painting possibly a hundred times. It was abstract. Yet every time I see it, I try to find some hidden message from the artist. No such luck. No eureka moment. I stared at it so intently I basically forgot where I was.
“Are you ok?” He asked
That brought me back to the present.
I am 52. Never married. No kids. No girlfriend that might turn into something more. I love my job – correction, I loved my job. But recently the higher ups decided the role is evolving. I am not a sales guy, but now I have to sell add-on services as part of my technical role. So I play the lottery doggedly to the point I probably need an intervention now. I am not an entrepreneur: as an introvert that was never going to be my path. But I need a way off the hamster wheel that’s the American dream. The odds are against me I know. Some of the games have odds in the billion, but yet I play them and dream. Since it’s truly a game of chance and luck, I am just as likely or unlikely as the next person to win. But if you don’t play, your odds are zero. …
Tope: “Say something”.
Me: “I Don’t know where to start. It seems like I have wasted my life chasing the wrong things. I haven’t spent my high school and university days having multiple girlfriends. I haven’t even bought a new car once, the closest was a 2-year old car with 20k miles on it. I don’t even have enough money to will to anyone or retire.”
He didn’t say anything. But he has a pensive and introspective look on his face.
I continued.
“About the only relationship I have ever had lasted less than 6 months before she ran, and rightly so, because I was proud – proud and old.”
He interjected “interesting. Guess I don’t know the lady. What’s her name?”
Me: “Let’s call her H – that’s really the first letter of her name”
Tope: “So H, she ran. Why?”
Me: “Complicated. But Yes she did. She ran so fast the door didn’t hit her backside on the way out” I tried to make light of the situation. “And talking about running, I ran once myself. Let me tell you the story.”
“some 7 or so years after I had left the university, a close family friend – we actually grew up together since our mums are besties – reached out to me from the UK where she had relocated to and said a lady I must have attended some classes with during my university days asked for my number when somehow I came up during some conversation. Now she was barely more than an acquaintance to this other lady. I said yes. Over the next few months I talked on the phone pretty regularly with the lady. The conversation wasn’t forced and was pleasant. So my vacation came up and I planned to spend it in the UK so I agreed to visit her. Note that I have never seen this lady and had no idea what she looked like outside the favorable description given to me by my friend. Turns out she lived very far from London. My journey started on the tube (London underground), switched trains a couple of times then got on a surface train to get to her town.
Met up with her and we had lunch, saw a movie, and then a quick stop at the house she shared with two or three other ladies. Each had their own room but the living area was shared. Well some undergarments were hanging on the heater. She pointedly told me they belonged to one of her housemates and I could tell it was a sore point. Late in the evening, she dropped me off at the train station for my return journey to London. Now I have strong opinions on some issues which has softened a little with time. The lady was maybe one and a half my size – I may be exaggerating a little. Not sure how exercise came up, but she did mention she had slacked off and needed to get back into the gym. Now my opinion was that if a single lady is unable to manage her weight – after all no one gets fat from drinking water – it’s a one way slippery slope – what’s going to happen after one or two kids. So by the time I got to London I saw no future in it. As the saying goes, “I just couldn’t deal”. (My friend later said she hadn’t seen her physically in maybe a year or more so she likely let herself go.). She was supposed to pay me a return visit at my brother’s place before I returned to Nigeria, but when she called to set it up, I said no. My excuse was the distance was too much for a relationship (Nigeria to UK), as well as that I was also talking to a lady in Nigeria – not true but there was indeed a lady I daydreamed – ok – fantasized about at my place of work. She desperately wanted the return visit and sounded so distraught. I felt so guilty after the call. If I had to do it again, I would have let her visit me, returned to Nigeria and gradually stopped talking to her on the phone.
The reason I brought it up was that possibly 10 plus years after the event and with the only short-lived relationship I have ever had ended, my mum’s bestie found this pastor or prophet or whatever who seemed to have the “gift”. Anyway a call was arranged. He prayed for a short while and asked if I had ever slept with a lady and ghosted her – nope. Have I ever promised a lady marriage only to disappear – nope. He kept insisting that there was a lady I needed to get right with. I concluded he was just “fishing”. Some time after the call, the UK lady came to my mind for the first time in years. I know I didn’t make any promises but then the only way I could interpret the pastor’s position was maybe she placed a hex on me. Now my position on hexes has changed widely over the years. At some times I believed hexes are hoaxes; they are not real. At other times I believed if you wronged someone, and they place a hex on you, you deserved it, and it will have an effect. Then at other times I believed they were real whether or not you did something to deserve it. Even if I discount all the witchcraft and related stories I heard growing up, there’s the story of prophet Balaam In the Bible. He was hired to put a curse on the Israelites. He must have had a track record of delivering the “goods” so his reputation must have preceded him.
Well I couldn’t even remember the lady’s name. I called my friend who introduced us and as hard as I tried, not only did she not remember the lady. She didn’t even remember the context. My plan was to get hold of the lady and apologize. Well, that was a burst.”
I drew a few breathes and was silent for a minute.
“Now that the real possibility of death is staring me in the face, I find I am totally unprepared. Totally not ready. But at the same time I have always thought those who knew when they will die have an advantage – to set their house in order. I know you are not religious, but I have always thought about the Jewish king Hezekiah. He got 15 extra years by petitioning God. Fifteen years to do all he needed to do.”
“I have always wondered at the need to procreate. It always seems to me that’s it’s our ego. The need to be remembered when we are dust. And here I am thinking of the fact that I have no kids.”
“On the other hand, I have just enough time to make sure I make that heaven you don’t believe in”.
“So how much pain should I expect?”. I guess I have a morbid fascination with crime and to a lesser extent death as an expected end to all life. Quora, google, IG, and YouTube have made me knowledgeable enough to scare the bejeezus out of myself. In every situations the hypotheticals are running through my mind.
Tope: “We can make it so that there’s as little pain as possible. But that also generally comes with the side effect of loss of clarity. But don’t let’s dwell on that yet, breakthroughs are being made daily and there are lots of trial treatments and research going on. Hey, you play the lottery. So you should know there’s always the chance a drug may be discovered tomorrow that cures your cancer or all cancers. Albeit the chances are vanishingly small.”
Me: “I have never smoked, not slept around, been almost a good churchgoing choirboy and yet here we are. On the other hand, that’s kept me from a host of possible unwanted outcomes – no babies out there that I don’t know of; never had an STD; not addicted to any drugs …”
I trailed off. I know I sounded like I am trying to convince myself that I haven’t wasted my life.
The tick tock of the clock was almost deafening. Time matches on. I think of the cancer cells running wild in my body and having a Diddy-style freak-off. Even as I sat in that room I was dying faster than the average healthy person.
Me: “On the positive side, I won’t leave behind a widow or fatherless children. That’s something I have always thought of in hypothetical terms. Whenever I read a story of someone that died young who had a partner and or kids, I always ask myself the question. Would they have got married or had kids if they knew they would die young?”
“The answer is not as simple as one would expect. Otherwise you won’t read of people hurrying to getting married when one of the couple has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. But I have always wondered if that’s not a selfish act. “
I know I am rambling but I couldn’t help myself. I suspect he is letting me go on as a way to let me process the “news”. He hasn’t once looked at his watch, and his receptionist hasn’t called his line or knocked on the door. I suspect he might have cleared his calendar for me knowing the enormity of the news.
“I do have life insurance. I can collect up to 60% of it while alive to use for anything I like from throwing a party, running through my bucket list to of course treatment. I have no intention of doing any of that. Why waste the money when the ending is inevitable? I might as well leave that to my siblings and mum.”
Tope: “You know my views on religion”
Me: “Yes. That it is a crutch to help us handle the fact that we are nothing, actually less than nothing in the grand scheme of things, so we created gods.
But the only answer I have always given you is what Paul said, “now we know in part but then we will know in full”. To which you have always said that is a get out of jail free card. So I guess as usual we agree to disagree and accept we are at an impasse on that topic. So once again we set it aside. But know that while I draw breath, I will continue to take you to task on the subject since I care about your soul – though how many times I will be able to do that is questionable given my current prognosis.”
Tope: “Didn’t the same Bible say the dead are aware of nothing? Yeah, I know you are going to repeat the “we know in part”. But that’s why some people claim there are contradictions in the “good” book, and that’s just one of them.
Me: “Frankly there are questions I myself have, but that’s why faith comes into play …”
Tope: “A second crutch …”
Me: “My first inclination and I suspect same for many others is to go on the defensive, but I won’t do that for two reasons. One, as James Luther Adam said “A faith worth having is faith worth discussing and testing.”, so as a Christian I should welcome honest debates about Christianity, and second, maybe if I read the Bible as diligently, studiously, and regularly as I ought to, I would have an answer for you. So on this occasion, I concede this round on account of more pressing issues.”
Silence …
Tope: “Ok, let’s get back to discussing a plan for your treatment.”
I was less than enthusiastic, and the only thought that came to my mind at that moment was the fact that Jesus prayed to be spared his fate, even though he knew that was not in the books, because he said “Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me: I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”
So then, what are my chances … I must accept my fate, roll with the punches, and make the best of what is coming.
References/Bible verses:
1. 1 Corinthians 13:12: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known”
2. Numbers 22: Balak, king of Moab asks Balaam the prophet to put a curse on the Israelites.
3. Psalms 40:7 (and Hebrews 10:7): Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.
4. Ecclesiastes 9:5: “For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know nothing at all, neither have they any more a reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.”
5/25/2025