Last year in Nov. we learned that my youngest brother most probably had cancer in either his pancreas or gallbladder. He had lost a ot of weight and become very jaundiced.

   He had just turned 51.

  My oldest brother flew from Ont., my sister came from northern Ab., my other brother and I went down to Calgary to see him. He was so thin and on a lot of meds.

  I think we all knew then that this may not have an ending that any of us wanted to imagine. He was operated on in Jan of 2010. He was supposed to have a Whipple procedure done but when they got in they saw that the cancer had spread to his gallbladder ,pancreas,liver,and small intestine. They did a gastric bypass. Things went downhill very quickly after that.

  He came home from the hospital about 3 weeks later.  In the insuing monthw he tried everything; probitic nutritional supplements, organic chocolate, stem cell inquiries, and the idea that if he gained more strength, palliative chemo.

  We, my sister and I, went down every weekend and extended time we could to help his wife with the care.

  I don't know how my sister felt but every time i went dowmy hands would sweat so bad that I had to keep wiping them every 30 sec. or so. Every time I came I saw how much worse he was.

 Everyone kept telling me about all these things that had helped someone they knew. It was too late.

  How do you go about trying to be positive when you know it doesn't make any difference? I had a conversation with him where I told him it was OK to let go.

  I've never had a wosre talk in my life. Our family was pretty screwed up from stuff from a long time ago; was this just history waiting to happen?  We interred his ashes this Aug long weekend alongside our Mom and just felt so futile. Is this what everyone feels like who loses someone so young to a terrible disease. Thanks for listening.