I would want to know the doctors' prognosis, too. Even if my reaction was to give up fighting and let the end come, it would be my reaction – my decision on whatever conscious or unconscious level – and I have a right to react that way about my own life and my own illness. More than likely, though, I would be among those who would not take the doctors' word as gospel. After all, when I first presented the symptoms of lupus twenty-some years ago, some of the literature out there at the time said that the prognosis for lupus patients was death in 5 years!

Charcloth, you mentioned on June 1st the case of the lady who was told she had a bad infection when she really had cancer, and had decided to conquer her fears and get well. This may be so, but there are also countless instances of cancer patients who decided to get well in spite of the dire predictions of doctors and who went into remission. I guess it all depends on the individual and the individual's will to live and to fight. It's a tough call, especially in this case where the disease affects the brain and its reaction from day to day if the truth were known to the patient.

But if I'm ever in the position where my family and friends and doctors say there's hope, but I think I read in their faces or in my own body-signals that there might not be, I'd like to think that I'd prepare for the end – just in case – by letting my loved ones know in no uncertain terms just what they mean to me and by at least saying, "If I don't see you again, good-bye".

I suppose that the best solution is to live so that one is always prepared to go, in the sense that one tells his loved ones how he feels about them, clears up any quarrels quickly, and so forth... since, of course, any of us could go at any time as a victim of an accident or heart failure or a crime. But I have to agree with Steve (Norton1): I'd be pissed if I went to work any longer than I had to! I sure would hate to die with vacation days left over that I could've taken if only someone had told me that I'd better take 'em!!!