Leroy Sievers and "My Cancer"

While looking through recent articles in Obit Magazine, I came across one about a cancer blogger, Leroy Sievers who died August 15, 2008. (I think blogging is a form of contemporary literature that we haven't brought up yet.) Sievers, who was an executive producer for Nightline, began blogging about his cancer experience in 2006 when he started writing commentary for NPR's Morning Edition.

Sievers was diagnosed with colon cancer about 4 years earlier. In 2005, he was found to have cancer in his lung and brain and was given 6 months to live. He participated in a Discovery Channel documentary entitled "Living with Cancer".

He used his blog to discuss his experiences with the medical community and how his diagnosis effected him emotionally and physically.

"My doctors are trying to poison me. Oh, they have the best intentions. They call the process chemotherapy. The idea is to poison the body enough to kill the cancer, but not quite kill the patient. Best I can tell, it's a difficult line to walk. " May 11, 2006

His commented on a lot of the daily issues and life changes that his cancer brought. Some of these topics included outliving his prognosis, keeping clean, giving up his beloved Jeep that he could no longer drive, and making the decision to sign on to hospice. The post below describes another big change.

"It pretty much fills the room. It took four of us, actually five of us, to get me into it.
It's my new bed.
The only really scary part was when I slipped and almost fell on the floor.
The bed's electric. It lets me do things I couldn't do before.
But let's be honest, too. It's a hospital bed. It was not an easy decision to bring it into the house.
But here I am, in it.
Cancer World brings another change." August 11, 2008


Sievers' wife Laurie Singer continues his blog.

Posted by Amber Wollesen, MD on Monday, November 24, 2008

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