Leroy:

I am so proud of you for saying what those in what I call "Cancer World" feel. You are Grace. We do what we have to. Heroism does not enter into the calculation, but the desire and will to live, does. Basically, we do not believe we have a choice.

I am so sorry that the chemo did not work, and that you are living with all consuming disease. But living, you are. And I want you to know, that my prayers include you.

Love from the tropics.

Sent by Julie | 10:46 AM ET | 01-08-2007

Mr. Sievers,

We listeners/readers are all looking forward to your take on the coming year when January 2008 comes around, a year with better news all around, we trust and pray.

You continue to inspire with every post.

Sent by Bill Combs | 10:58 AM ET | 01-08-2007

Leroy — I'm an ER Doctor and just stumbled over your blog the other day on the NPR site. I don't have cancer (yet), but I frequently encounter the brave individuals and their families who are living with it. I occasionally have the difficult task of delivering a new diagnosis of metastatic lesions to patients who had thought they were "normal" a few hours before. I found an interesting essay called "Reflections on some Spiritual Aspects of Life Threatening Illness" it is written by Robert Magrisso M.D., and can be found on the following Web site: chicagoiands.org under the "stories" section. I think it might be worth your time. Have Courage

Sent by S. Carrier, M.D. | 11:22 AM ET | 01-08-2007

Nicely said... not being eager to change things, but not wanting to do it all over again.

Also, we lost Bobby Hamilton Sr. this weekend. A NASCAR racer and father who had a brief but courageous fight with cancer. As with all our brothers and sisters in arms in our fight, he is in our thoughts and prayers.

Sent by Brit | 3:55 PM ET | 01-08-2007

Leroy,

Thank you for everything you've been able to give to those of us affected by cancer. You are right, there are so many questions that just don't have an answer. The "why cancer", "why me"? I'd like to lend this community of ours an article on the idea of "positive disintegration." It was written by a Catholic Priest named Ron Rolheiser and the article is on his Web site. Whether you are a religious person or not, the article has an interesting perspective on the dark times in our lives and their possible meaning. Thank you for giving us this forum for sharing about all of life. The good, the bad, and the cancer...

Sent by Missy | 3:57 PM ET | 01-08-2007

Dear Leroy:

I have been following your blog for a while and look forward to your thoughts and insights. Your comment that you thought it was better for you not to know how difficult chemo was going to be struck a chord in me, because I think there are many things in life we seem to get through —- sometimes better for blind ignorance. A few weeks before Christmas, a cousin of mine, a young woman, passed away. And during the holidays, two old friends spoke of their losses. We talked about the unpredictable nature of life, how you don't know what you don't know. And, yet, despite living in this information-driven society, sometimes it is better not knowing. Reading your blog is hard because I think, speaking for myself, it is frightening to think about disease. It's frightening to know that your life could change so dramatically and possibly end. How will your family cope? Who will pay the bills? A thousand little things, some of which I just don't want to think about. I don't want to know. But your blog gives me courage. Thank you.

Sent by Tim Louis Macaluso | 4:01 PM ET | 01-08-2007

Leroy-

I'm close to being on the same path that you are, but started six months later than you did. After the initial gut-punch of being told I had a cancerous rectal tumor, I got a second gut-punch of being told that it was worse than the original diagnosis and it was now a stage IV with serious liver mets. I'll never forget being told "You won't make it to the end of summer without immediate treatment" - ugh...gut-punch number three. So I started treatment and got some dramatic responses after two rounds of chemo. But now it's leveled off and I don't seem to show any more response. We called the last scan a "draw" — no new growth, but no more shrinkage either. And the liver has too much damage to really be considered operable. What started out as a fair amount of optimism for favorable response has started to evaporate into a dreary cycle of treatment/scan/review results...repeat...

Would I do anything different? No, probably not. When given the choice of treatment or die, the answer is really pretty easy — bravery really doesn't enter the picture for you, the patient. It's not like you really have a choice, it's just survival under a set of unpleasant rules and side effects. The people who are brave are our loved ones and caretakers who have to watch the process and figure out how to cope with us.

What will I do this year? I guess I will eat a bit more chocolate, enjoy a glass of wine a few times, and try some new restaurants. If I'm up to it, maybe I will take that trip to Hawaii with the hope of making a follow-up trip next year. In short — I won't give up, but maybe I'll enjoy a few more things while I'm still on the ride.

Maybe I'll see you in Hawaii. Chocolate and drinks are on me.

Sent by Bob Maimone | 4:12 PM ET | 01-08-2007

Dr. S. Carrier, M.D. —

Your post was a reflection of what I think of ER docs. You have one of the hardest, most stressful jobs in medicine, and I don't know if most people appreciate your technical abilities (technicians of saving lives), and your commitment to medicine and your fellow man. Heroes for sure (and I don't use the word lightly, ever). Same with Oncology Docs and staff. Plastic Surgeons in the suburbs? Now that's a different story.

Sent by Laura | 4:15 PM ET | 01-08-2007

Dear Leroy,

Thank you so very much for sharing your thoughts and feelings; you are an inspiration to us all. While I was putting away my Christmas ornaments yesterday, trying to squash them back into the boxes, I reflected back 6 years about how carefully I had placed everything back in its proper box and the care with which I had labeled it all. I had been diagnosed with breast cancer right before Christmas that year and I didn't think I would be around to enjoy the tree, ornaments and presents the following year.

Obviously, I am still here and I have a much greater appreciation for all the little things that make up my life.

Stay strong, we need you.

Sent by Kathleen Dickinson | 4:51 PM ET | 01-08-2007

Dear Mr Sievers,

The words you write help. They help me to understand and cope with my friend's multiple myeloma. He is fighting it with all he has, but as a hospice RN, I know he will lose this battle. My profession should give me special insight, and usually does but this is my friend. Not a client, not a patient, not even family, a friend. A chosen, spiritual "buddy." My heart grieves while my mind desperately searches for the right things to say and do. The words you write help.

Sent by Laura Power | 4:54 PM ET | 01-08-2007

Hi Leroy:

It's your Canuck e-friend, Nancy, here. You sound understandably down in your recent posts, so I hope it helps that I continue to pray for you.

Meanwhile, before Christmas, your blog was discussing why there are so few movies/TV series about people with cancer, considering the disease is so rampant. I found the following news on the Web recently:

HBO tackles cancer in drama pilot By Nellie Andreeva

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) — HBO has given the green light to a medical drama pilot that explores the battle against cancer from the patients point of view.

TV veteran J.J. Abrams (Alias, Felicity) is in negotiations to executive produce and possibly direct the untitled project.

It is based on the book The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness by Jerome Groopman, a professor at Harvard Medical School and writer for the New Yorker. Published in 2004, it tells the stories of seriously ill patients of Groopman who had relied on their hope to cope with their illness.

Groopman and his wife, Pamela Hartzband, also a professor at Harvard Medical School, will serve as consultants on the show.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

Thinking of you.

Sent by Nancy Boomer | 4:57 PM ET | 01-08-2007

Different treatment regimen, same self-depreciating feelings on a bad day. Nevertheless my conclusion is same as the authors. My daughter needs me, clients need me, god still loves me!!!

Sent by Bert Freeman, Attorney | 4:59 PM ET | 01-08-2007

I read the article S. Carrier recommended and I wish I could get everyone in my family to read it so they would better understand what I'm going through.

Sent by S. Cole | 5:01 PM ET | 01-08-2007

Leroy, If I knew last year what was going to happen to me, I would have gotten to the doctor earlier, I waited far too long, not knowing what the heck was going on, esophageal cancer has no screening test. By the time you get symptoms it's too late. I just think that anyone who has a history of cancer should be tested for everything at least once a year, even if there's no screening, they could have found it through an endoscopy. I realize the insurance companies would never approve such a thing because there are so many people with cancer, but if they did the numbers it would cost them less in the long run.

I remember asking my first cancer doctor 15 years ago if I should be tested more thoroughly every year instead of just blood work and a chest x-ray. He said no, if there are so symptoms why put yourself through all the tests. Now I know why one should subject themselves through every test out there, but of course the insurance wouldn't pay for it, and of course I couldn't afford it, so we are just screwed. I wish someone who lobby for this, but who? I would like to know what Dr. Magrisso, who reads your blog, thinks about all this. He seems like a caring doctor, a real rarity in my world. Keep up the good work and your health.

Sent by Ruth White | 5:14 PM ET | 01-08-2007

Cancer visited my house in 2002 when my partner and her two older sisters were all diagnosed with breast cancer within the first six months of the year. There were no blogs like yours online then, and thank goodness the three of them could be their own support system: comparing treatments in three different regions of the country, giving advice about different chemo drugs, how to deal with painful symptoms, and talking about the future. Thankfully everyone pulled through their surgeries, chemo, and radiation and has gone back to living a mostly normal life. Now every four months we wait to get the good news from check ups with the oncologist.

Reading your story brings up lots of memories, and I want to thank you for sharing your experiences with the world so that people who have not been touched by cancer might begin to understand what it's like and those who are undergoing treatment will perhaps feel less alone.

Sent by Carol Silva | 5:20 PM ET | 01-08-2007

Let's start with the FDA controlling cancer. The FDA thinks their medicines are the best treatments for cancer. Total bull**t. If the FDA's treatments work so well, then why isn't anyone ever totally cured?

I will tell you why. All the FDA sees is that you are money to them. They don't see that you are sick. The FDA are the ones that are sick. They make the doctors dish out the medications that don't work. That's why the FDA is getting sued constantly over the medications that they say are supposed to make people better, but don't. You see it on TV all the time with these lawyers that are collecting cases to sue the drug makers. I am living proof of the FDA screwing up. They shouldn't even be able to let these medications into the public. I was sick for two and a half years. I tried everything that the FDA said I should take. But nothing would work. I have a rare disease that makes me sick, but will not kill me. The doctors were trying to figure out what was causing this disease that was making me sick, but never could totally figure it out. They kept going to the FDA trying to find medications that would actually cure it. I had been in the hospital, doctor's office, or emergency room at least one of them every day. I had so many treatments that you couldn't even imagine. Doctors thought that my cells were cancerous. At that point they started me on treatments for cancer. I went through so many cancer treatments that it wasn't funny. But my cells weren't cancerous. Then they found out that with those treatments I ended up with an ulcer that was eating at my stomach. So that meant more medication that didn't work, and more blood work every other day.

So finally after two years they started bringing in more specialists. To make a long story short, after two and a half years they brought an alternative medical medicine specialist in. He actually gave me the right medicine that was natural that cured me. That's why I know the FDA is a phony piece of s**t with their medications. And the only real medications are the ones from God, that are natural. So take it from somebody that has been sick for two and a half years that the FDA is just out for money and not for healing.

Sent by M. Hill | 5:41 PM ET | 01-08-2007

Today's blog of 1/08 made me think back to a question I had of you, along the same theme, sent back in late summer.

If you make it (God I Hope So!) and you beat the cancer and become another Lance Armstrong... How will you your life be any different from day to day? Will you be the same person you always have been? And what will change as you go forward... attitude, outlook, accomplishments, and goals just to name a few? Will it all be the same in the end with the final analysis by whomever?

Does cancer bring out the best in us?

Thanks.

Sent by Jim M. | 5:46 PM ET | 01-08-2007

Leroy ?

I have found much to ponder in your daily blog reports. Thank you for continuing to report.

Today's entry made me look back to last January and what my world was like before cancer. Much of my life is the same, but my perspective has shifted on its little axis and I am different.

I would not have known what was coming. And honestly I discovered so much about myself, my family, my supporting friends.

I found out how bad the cancer is and I found I do have empathy inside me when I walk into a waiting room and see the faces and my heart breaks a little bit.

Cancer made me stronger. Cancer started me on a path to change a few things in my life that were not what I wanted anymore.

But do I want to see what lies ahead for this year? No way.

Sent by Julie Pietras | 1:01 PM ET | 01-09-2007

Your blog has been a gift to me. My sister is terminally ill and is in her last stages. It was only in Sept. that she was diagnosed. Your blog, aside from being inspirational, has helped me mostly in feeling that I am not alone in this sorrow.

Thank you for sharing this with NPR and essentially the world. As private as it is you letting us in gives us all so much hope and strength we would not otherwise have.

Thank you.

Sent by Donna Rose | 1:58 PM ET | 01-09-2007

Dearest Leroy,

This is for you and all our blogger friends out there as i truly believe we have all bonded in a "cybernet" sort of way!

May today there be peace within.

May you trust God that you are exactly where you are MEANT to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.

May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.

May you be content knowing you are a child of God. Let His presence settle into your bones and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.

Fondly for you Leroy and all our friends on this blog.

Sent by Marianne Dalton | 2:52 PM ET | 01-09-2007

Dear Leroy,

I just "discovered" your blog and I have to tell you — WOWWIE ZOWWIE MAN! I LOVE YOU!!

I love you for being so honest, even if it's not pretty or fancy. Life is like that — it's not always pretty or fancy, only in Hollywood where everything is fake. Wake at least some of those suckers out there in computerland up!!

I am sitting here blown away by your writing and your honesty. At 57 and having grown up in "beautiful downtown Burbank" that takes A LOT! I'm a jaded as they come even though I got out of there at 13 and moved to the country.

The medical establishment first said I was "terminal" at 16 with brain cancer in Vermont. In my 20s "they" told me I would be blind before age 35. Later, "they" said that I didn't have more than 3 months at age 38 with some weird uterine thing in New York.

But I'm still here — and I still don't have cancer anywhere and I'm not blind yet — so I just don't believe them anymore.

Really, why do you believe in them? Why are you letting them "write your script"? It's your lifewalk.

In fact, I got an emergency pacemaker implant in my early 50s because I was going through Level 4 Heart Block, which is total shutdown. I had been going through shutdown for 1-3 minutes sometimes every 10 minutes or so, but it varied from day to day. "They" were amazed that I had lived for over 2 years with total shutdown. [I'm not claiming that there weren't side effects, like memory loss while you are "gone" (when you "pop out" of your body and talk with your relatives on the "otherside"), but although it hurt, it was still do-able. Not great. But do-able.] And, as far as I know, I am the ONLY person to laugh during an implant, while in shutdown again. "They" freaked out!! It was the talk of Albany.

Know what I hate? I hate the word "terminal." It makes you feel like everybody else is NOT. Really, who is going to get out of here alive?? It is the human condition.

We ALL have to go, sometime. It's just that it's so nice to see through your eyes. (I watch every sunset possible.) It's so nice to hear. (I listen to only music that I like as much as possible because I know that it helps me to keep my balance.) It's so nice to have arms and lips to kiss your loved ones.

Its just so damn nice being alive!

I love my family passionately: my lovely, wonderful husband of 29 years, my three grown kids, and my first new baby grandson, who lights up my world with his huge blue eyes. I love my gorgeous mountain in the Adirondacks — my wild birds and animals, my flowers and trees and beautiful old volcanic rocks.

I love living, but I know my "days are numbered", just like everyone else.

The time comes to move on and visit with Creator and loads of friends. I will miss everything about living this life. It is such a precious gift.

Please, fight against the machine. We need your honesty. We need your strength and clarity of vision. You know the quote (one of my favorites): Rage, rage against the dying of the light! Write your own script and rage on!

I send you blessings of showers of pink love bubbles to soothe the pain.

Love, Light & JOY! (Don't forget the JOY!) Dance while you still can! Celebrate your existence! It is always over too soon. Party ON with respect and thankfulness for what we have experienced.

Sent by Melissa Heshmat | 3:05 PM ET | 01-09-2007

Dear Leroy,

I've followed your blog almost daily since its inception & have used it to learn from, & to guide my work w/ our patients. You've spoken often about "hospital time." The new NCI newsletter reports on a study which evaluated the burden of patient time lost to cancer care. We all know it's significant.

Sent by Ellen Ballard, RN | 2:10 PM ET | 01-10-2007