Jens Berges' blog part 1

My name is Jens Berges, and in this blog, I will document my dying. I am a Scandinavian man, 72 years old, and I have lived in Southeast Asia for more than four decades. I have diseased lungs. Two years ago, in November 2022, I visited a small-town hospital for a bad cough, and on that visit, based on an X-ray (see below), I was diagnosed with either lung cancer or tuberculosis.

I did not proceed with follow-up examinations. Look, at that time, I was 70, and I reckoned that I will soon have to die of something anyway. So, I thought, it may as well be lung cancer, or tuberculosis.

Richard Smith, an influential British physician and previously the editor of BMJ (the British Medical Journal), on December 31, 2014, wrote in a controversial blog post that dying of cancer is the best death. Untreated cancer, that is. That does not mean "no medications". One may be given morphin to ease pain. Morphin does not treat cancer, but it can make patients feel better.

I am 72. If I do have cancer, in my lungs, or anywhere in my body, I will not treat it. I do not think it will be worthwhile. I may have a few more months to live, and I do not want to spend that remaining time feeling nauseated from chemotherapy or radiation.

My X-ray suggested lung cancer or tuberculosis. I did not undergo a biopsy to confirm or exclude a cancer diagnosis. I also never had a sputum culture to confirm tuberculosis.

Today, I am not feeling healthy, but I am also not feeling sick. I just feel old, with a cough, and generally limited strength. I cannot lift things because of pain in the shoulders. And I have a wound on my chest wall that takes ages to heal.

I am not sure how these things are related to my sick lungs.

I am dying, but I do not want to know of what. An exact diagnosis, sort of a schedule, would only make me worry more about the next days or weeks.

I do appreciate the uncertainty. Maybe it's cancer, maybe it's tuberculosis, but, also maybe, it's something else. So I spend my days, which are bearable, just as everyday routines, as I would when not knowing that death is coming up.