Irv

By Vince Campanelli

A horror story of one man's life-and-death struggle and the inconceivable actions he undertakes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vince Campanelli
• Release date: Aug 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466068025

Book preview

Chapter 1

I’m being eaten alive. And man….does that suck.

You know what sucks the worst? Knowing you’re dying and not being able to do a damn thing about it.

Oh sure, everyone claims they want to know how and when they’re going to die. What for? To get everything ready for that final day? To right past wrongs? To make amends? To really live for a change instead of existing?

I’m not sure what the answer is. I do know, however, that many a fortune teller has stayed in business simply because people want to ‘know’.

Heck, there’s even a web site on the internet that will ask you a number of questions about your health and lifestyle and then spit out how many years you should expect to live. I assume everyone lies on the answers in order to get a bigger number. Bigger is better, right?

With the median life expectancy of almost 79 years now, I guess everyone wants to beat that number.

I did too – except mine came up at 78.6 years of age – and I didn’t lie on the questions.

It looks like I definitely won’t make it that long.

Chapter 2

I’ve know I’m dying for a little over 4 months now. I went for my yearly physical 6 months ago and Dr. Gomez, who has been my GP for 20 years, found what he thought was a hardening on the right side of my body. It was around on my back above the love handle.

Doc Gomez has always been straight with me over the years. We’ve not had any close scares but stuff more along the likes of pneumonia, hyper-tension and the dreaded shingles (they were the worst).

He’s never sugar-coated anything for me nor has he ever failed to answer a direct question of mine with an even more direct answer. Most patients would probably hate this, but not me. I’d rather have the un-varnished truth rather than some BS. After all, it is my body and I deserve to know both what’s going right with it, and of course, what’s going wrong.

This particular day (May 15, 2009) I heard Doc Gomez actually pause in mid-sentence before going on. He had never done this before.

Doc, I said, is there something you need to tell me?

As he turned to look at me his face said it all.

Uh-oh. That’s not a good face Doc. What gives?

I’m not sure, Dr. Gomez said, but I don’t like the feel of this.

Feel of what?

Here give me your hand, the Doc said, and press right here.

And with that he bent my right arm and hand around my back and had me press down.

I gently prodded a second or two and then I felt it. And froze. My stomach dropped and I swear I felt my hair stand on end.

It was hard, real hard…unnaturally hard…..unyielding hard. And big, like a softball. We’re not supposed to be hard back there, not like that.

What’s that? I croaked