In Absence of Self-Pity An Ojai resident, he addressed an attentive audience of forty people, at the Ojai Retreat one mid-May, on the subject of “living on the edge of dying.” In a matter-of-fact tone, punctuated with an enthusiastic chuckle and descriptive gestures, Gordon Farrell buoyantly described how cancer acts as a personal wake-up call. In the latter months of 1988, his busy career as a commercial photographer in San Francisco had brought him to the brim of financial success. He had energetically kept his nose to the Type-A fast track, resting only five hours a night, seven days a week. “At that time, my favorite song was ‘I am a rock; I am an island…’” He was then in his mid-thirties. Now in his late forties, with close-cropped brown hair, and a beard backed by a dimpled grin, his solid body is that of a former high-school football player. “I had always been healthy.” Then came the day when he touched a hard lump in his abdomen. Stopping by for a cursory check at his doctor’s office, he soon found himself in a day-long escalation of pathology tests at the Stanford University medical center. Concluding a CAT scan with biopsies, the diagnosis: cancer in the lymphatic network, which is the body’s defensive tackle. And cancer’s end run: metastasis in pancreas, lung, bone marrow—and the abdominal tumor. Prognosis: too advanced for surgery, chemotherapy or radiation. Time left in the game: three to six months.
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