One of the things I've done is find a free funeral planning website, My Wonderful Life. I've assigned an Angel, someone to release the details of what I've planned to loved ones, and I've also set up a pre-pay arrangement for my funeral. I've written my obituary, and decided that I want a visitation prior to the funeral, and I want to be cremated. My ashes will stay with Jen, and will be interred with hers once she passes.
I'd really like my ashes to be kept in a dragon-themed urn, such as this stunning beauty. The cost of it will come out of my funeral expenses.
This is the reality of Metastatic Breast Cancer. There's no Pink Cure here. And 40% of the people with breast cancer have Metastatic Breast Cancer, which is responsible for 100% of the breast cancer-related deaths. This is why I advocate so hard to keep Stage IV from being ignored. Even people with earlier-stage Breast Cancer are blinded by the pinkwashing and don't realize they're at risk of developing metastasis, regardless of stage and treatment. Stage IV needs more. We need more awareness, more funding, more research. To drive the point home, that those with a metastatic diagnosis are terminal, we have to start actively thinking about things like wills and funerals, and sometimes at a young age, I'll share my obituary. Obviously it will be edited as time passes and things change, but this is how it is today, at this moment in time.
Susanne Kraus-Dahlgren
"She's a traveler, she's a gypsy, passing through and moving on."
Born April 23, 1974 in Ft Wayne, Ind to her amazing and awesome parents, Michael and Carolyn, who survive her, she moved to TX at age 16, and then later to her final home of Lincoln, Neb, which she shared with her partner and wife of $Years, Jennifer Kraus-Dahlgren, and their furbabies, Josh, Loki, and George Bailey.
She is also survived by her grandmother, Marybelle Timbrook of OH, four aunts, two uncles, their spouses, and dozens of cousins, and five heart-sisters: Rebecca Ford of TX, Kristin Davis of NC, Caity Silke of CA, Laura Schultz of NH, and Sara Lang of TX.
She is preceded in death by three grandparents, Clifford and June Kraus of IN, and Basil Timbrook of OH, and by numerous furbabies who have happily welcomed her to her new home.
In her too-short journey on this earth, she was an actress, a writer, a knitter, a geek, a horseback rider, and a nurse. A daughter, a lover, a friend, a sister, and family to many more than the bonds of genetics define.
"If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do."
I want the obit printed in three newspapers. The Lincoln Journal-Star, the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, and the Bryan-College Station Eagle.
I want memorial donations in my name to go to any of these beneficiaries:
http://www.allfelinehospital.com/
http://www.metavivior.org/
http://www.youngsurvival.org/
http://wishuponawedding.org/
This is the reality of Metastatic Breast Cancer. I'm 40 years old and I have an obituary written. Hopefully it won't need to be published for a long time to come, but I know it will be published. Where's the Pink Hope and Cure for me? It doesn't exist.
If this month has taught you anything about the realities of MBC, please consider making a donation to METAvivor instead of buying pink ribbon merchandise.
I'd say something profound about how ultimately we all have our obituaries published if we love and are loved, but I'm still kind of not coming to grips with the fact people 'my age' might die*. Hell, I'm not coming to terms with the fact people my parents' age die.
ReplyDelete* Intellectually, I know it. Heck, someone friends of mine knew in high school was killed in a car accident when she was in college, and a grade-school friend lost her father well after we moved to NE and lost contact. But no one in my immediate circle, besides grandparents and such, and one of Mom's cousins (that hit her harder than me).
It's a hard thing to come to grips with. Death can be such an abstract, distant concept most of the time. I don't plan on going anywhere for a long time, though. But coming to grips with it was part of the requirements of understanding a MBC diagnosis. I'm doing good though. I don't foresee that changing for a while, and even if it does, there's a lot of other treatments open to me still.
DeleteIt's a beautiful obituary, which I hope won't be needed until a very long time. Still, it's a wise idea to think these arrangements through, and has given me food for thought.
ReplyDeleteFood for thought is always good. I, too, hope that the obit will not get published for a long time, and I anticipate a few edits being needed as time goes by. I'm prepaying for the funeral to lessen any financial burden.
DeleteOMG, this is @BSvercl. I'm reading through your blog and got stopped by this entry. My Daughter was born Aug. 31, 1974. She actually planned her funeral about a year before her passing. She was the office manager at her church so she made sure a copy went to minister. I wish she had written her own obit, it was one of the hardest things I have ever done. Lisa was stage 3 from the beginning and then went to stage 4 two and a half years in. My prayers are with you, you are wise beyond your years. With love, Beth S.
ReplyDelete