Yellow Roses for for Bob from his Forum Friends

I stopped by Bob's grave yesterday while in Pensacola and left 16 yellow roses. Bob would love the bargain I got on them. $2 at Winn Dixie with my store card! I had to giggle and knew they were the flowers meant for him. Someone has a small Christmas tree placed there. It was tipped over so I straightened it up.

That's really nice.

How thoughtful.

He deserved it.

Very nice.

Do they still have the mound of dirt there like a couple weeks ago?

I have met the couple who left the Christmas decorations, very nice and thoughtful.

Thanks SW, I miss Bob every day on this forum . . . .

So thoughtful of you, SW -- and thanks for including us. I think you're right that Bob would applaud your smart purchase, but more than that I think he would be overwhelmed with gratitude at your very warm gesture. Almost brought me to tears. I, too, dearly miss his presence here.

You're a peach and a half for doing this.

He would be so happy about the bargain. I miss him every day.

That was a very nice thing to do SW.

I think the social aspect of meeting people through sharing (and disagreeing) thought really brings a dimension to meeting people that is not as easy in public. The first time I met Teo, Bob, and Lisa for lunch was not awkward at all. Like we were old friends. I'm thankful for the few other times we met. But Bob's sarcasms, intellect, and pure love of a good deal really were endearing.

Ugg...miss those who have gone on and pray all stay well and continue to fight the fights you are fighting. Let's have a healthy 2017 - as best we all can.

Ppaca, the grave site is settling out. I didn't have to drive around too much to find a fresh site near a stone marked Wood. He's next to his mom.

He's next to his mom.


It seems like it was yesterday that he was taking care of his mother. He was a good person. Caretakers are special people, and I am still kinda piszed that when he was in need, he might not have been getting the best care. I think he gave up because he knew how aggressive the cancer had become, but I feel like folks fall between the cracks in our safety net, and in the end family is really all who gives a chit. I have never felt better than seeing the response from folks on this forum who came to his aid, but in the end, I am simply piszed at myself for not doing a better job to convince him to travel and live in Houston for a few months at the Anderson facility where he could have gotten treatment and had surgery at the best cancer treatment center in America. I do not know a thing about where T had his surgery or where Bob had his surgery, but I played poker with a guy last night at our annual Christmas party of golf buddies, who fully recovered from a massive brain tumor six years ago. The difference is that brain surgery took place at a world recognized brain surgery center. He was alive and thriving. It sometimes just is not fair.

2seaoat wrote:He's next to his mom.


It seems like it was yesterday that he was taking care of his mother.  He was a good person.   Caretakers are special people, and I am still kinda piszed that when he was in need, he might not have been getting the best care.   I think he gave up because he knew how aggressive the cancer had become, but I feel like folks fall between the cracks in our safety net, and in the end family is really all who gives a chit.   I have never felt better than seeing the response from folks on this forum who came to his aid, but in the end, I am simply piszed at myself for not doing a better job to convince him to travel and live in Houston for a few months at the Anderson facility where he could have gotten treatment and had surgery at the best cancer treatment center in America.  I do not know a thing about where T had his surgery or where Bob had his surgery, but I played poker with a guy last night at our annual Christmas party of golf buddies, who fully recovered from a massive brain tumor six years ago.   The difference is that brain surgery took place at a world recognized brain surgery center.  He was alive and thriving.  It sometimes just is not fair.

Teo and Bob had the same surgeon...

For some of us, the logistics and cost are too much for us to travel. Therefore we die...


I agree. My only chance at this juncture is to travel to Holland and get the PRRT treatment for about 25k. However, my decline has advanced so quickly that the logistics......the simple process of moving a patient to treatment site which is life saving is next to impossible. I have one chance. Northwestern gets approved for the PRRT program, and I can get into the study without spending 60k non covered costs with no guarantee of a day more life......I will not take 60k away from my wife to gamble on a last chance, but it still does not change that the best treatment requires that I travel. Hell.....I have not flown in a plane for eight years because of my health, yet somehow I am going to take a fifteen hour plane trip.....yep logistics get you killed.

2seaoat wrote:He's next to his mom.


It seems like it was yesterday that he was taking care of his mother.  He was a good person.   Caretakers are special people, and I am still kinda piszed that when he was in need, he might not have been getting the best care.   I think he gave up because he knew how aggressive the cancer had become, but I feel like folks fall between the cracks in our safety net, and in the end family is really all who gives a chit.   I have never felt better than seeing the response from folks on this forum who came to his aid, but in the end, I am simply piszed at myself for not doing a better job to convince him to travel and live in Houston for a few months at the Anderson facility where he could have gotten treatment and had surgery at the best cancer treatment center in America.  I do not know a thing about where T had his surgery or where Bob had his surgery, but I played poker with a guy last night at our annual Christmas party of golf buddies, who fully recovered from a massive brain tumor six years ago.   The difference is that brain surgery took place at a world recognized brain surgery center.  He was alive and thriving.  It sometimes just is not fair.

MD might not be all it's cracked up to be. After this open enrollment and talking with many senior's who have or had cancer that have gone there have said it's nothing short of an assembly line to death. I know we and myself have thought of it as a save all, but it's not.

One senior couple in their early 80's told me their daughter had colon cancer, went to MD and all they could offer was chemo which almost killed her. With a suggestion of an oncologist he told them to take her to a Baylor oncologist where that doc said cannabis oil may help her after a ctscan came back and showed it spread to liver. They live here and have for two months have been running the oil to her in Baylor, didn't share where they were getting it or if they were making it, but cancer is gone in colon and shrunk the tumor's in her liver.


BTW Bob did go to Baptist MD Anderson a new MD center in Jacksonville for a second opinion early on and they concurred with Sacred Heart. His docs at Sacred Heart one time at his appt had a conference call with an oncologist at MD.

Might add a senior with stage 3 melanoma being treated at baptist with yervoy is in remission, but they just approved stage 3 treatment recently. They didn't diagnose Bob until stage 4.

Teo and Bob had the same surgeon...


I do not know a thing about the man or his skills, but I am certain he has not had the success of a top ten cancer center. Not even close. I had my left upper lobe and tumor removed by a doctor who had only seen two of my type of tumors in his thirty year career. My new Pulmonary doc at Northwestern does 150 of the same surgeries on my type of tumor each year. After they cut the tumor out no doctor put me on sandostatin which attacks and slows the cancer. Four years without shots based on their utter ignorance of this rare cancer, and I had metastases on the liver and a death sentence. I am not saying that Bob would have wanted to travel, or had the resources, but I utterly failed with my written word to get him to Houston, and yes the logistics and costs would have drove Bob crazy......he might have pitched a tent rather than spend for room and board.

2seaoat wrote:Teo and Bob had the same surgeon...


I do not know a thing about the man or his skills, but I am certain he has not had the success of a top ten cancer center.   Not even close.   I had my left upper lobe and tumor removed by a doctor who had only seen two of my type of tumors in his thirty year career.  My new Pulmonary doc at Northwestern does 150 of the same surgeries on my type of tumor each year.   After they cut the tumor out no doctor put me on sandostatin which attacks and slows the cancer.   Four years without shots based on their utter ignorance of this rare cancer, and I had metastases on the liver and a death sentence.   I am not saying that Bob would have wanted to travel, or had the resources, but I utterly failed with my written word to get him to Houston, and yes the logistics and costs would have drove Bob crazy......he might have pitched a tent rather than spend for room and board.

He had arranged to stay with somebody he knew in Houston until the oncologist in Jax convinced him otherwise.

The part nobody could foresee was when that tumor would interfere with his motor functions. Hell, he could have been on a cruise, or traveling anywhere in the country. Chit happens, but I wish T and Bob could have had their surgeries at the best facilities in the country. I had a lung removed in a similar hospital as Bob and T. I learned only afterwards the difference in a regional general hospital and a cancer research center. Also, both could have had the most experienced best surgeons in the nation and the results might not have changed.......my nagging guilt is I gave up on my argument with Bob because I had become overbearing and my posts were counterproductive. If I had a chance to meet him like I planned last February, perhaps I could have done a better job in person, but I am very sad as to what happened to Bob and T. The fact that the same surgeon operated on both is consistent with what I feared which has really no basis in fact.....just a gut feeling I have had from his treatment in rehab to his final demise. I guess anger is part of the process when you see such a kind human being pass.

I live with my mistake every day that I did not go the best to deal with my cancer. It is not cruel. It is real. I Fd up. I just spent last week with somebody I share office space with being an advocate to get a second opinion and go to Chicago to deal with his cancer just discovered after hernia surgery. I spent last night playing poker with one of my best friends who went to MN to get treatment on his stage four prostrate cancer at Mayo which has spread and metastasized. He did not hesitate and traveled, but the truth is it is too late. He will be dead in two years and whether it was Mayo or whether is was the same group who told me my lung tumor was asthma.......he is doomed.

I remember after my father died when I was ten, how I did a thousand what ifs. I remember when my Grandfather died of lung cancer in Birmingham at the same time Aurthur Godfrey survived lung cancer surgery and lived for quite a few years while my grandfather who was not a tv star, but an engineer on the railroad died a horrible death which I witnessed and went to bed every night thinking in child like "what ifs", and understanding by the time I was ten that life simply in the end is not fair, and that we can only get so much quality of life and to simply be grateful for the same.

Life is fragile and we are not in total control. We treasure the time we have with friends and loved ones. Blame and what-ifs get us nowhere.

Hallmark, thinking of you in this Christmas season of hope. Praying you know peace and reflect on all the wonderful, loving memories of your wife.

Beautifully said.

SheWrites, thank you for that beautiful gesture. And Seaoat...stop blaming yourself.

And Seaoat...stop blaming yourself.


If he went to Houston, probably as aggressive as the brain tumor was it was probably already too late, but I do blame myself for not being more competent in communicating how horrible my experience was with local general doctors and regional hospitals. All good people and normally quite competent, but the top cancer centers are just in another universe of care when dealing with cancer. I had at least four major malpractices in my illness journey. I would never file a lawsuit, because the biggest dropping of the ball was my pulmonary doc who actually found the lung tumor after a totally incompetent doctor for six months tested me for asthma and never did an xray or did a pressure breathing test at the hospital to check for obstructions, and they took out my gall bladder which they had noted was diseased, but that doctor never ordered pathology on the gall bladder, and finally my GP who for five years ignored my complaints which clearly required at least a cat scan to determine the source of my problems. They all horribly dropped the ball. The Pulmonary doc who found the tumor was a teaching professor at the University of Illinois and was a smart guy, but after they took out the tumor, he did not have the knowledge to know I should have been immediately put on sandostatin shots which might have knocked the cancer out completely, and for four years without checking my hormone levels which are a requirement in endocrine cancer, the cancer metastasized on my liver. I could have been cured if I had went to Northwestern originally, and the lack of knowledge and skills was overwhelmingly obvious, and my wife and kids were piszed, but I have never been angry because I believe everything happens for a reason, and I have been blessed. However, he only had two endocrine cancer patients in his thirty years and did not know of the importance of the 24 hour urine test to monitor my hormone levels, or the necessity to put me on shots. It was pure and simple malpractice based on lack of knowledge.

My new Pulmonary doc specializes in endocrine cancer and does 150 lung surgeries on them each year. It is not a matter that I would have been right asking him to stay in Houston, but I am certain that his odds would have greatly improved, and I failed in communicating how utterly lacking general practice doctors are and how oncologists in regional hospitals just do not have the tools or experience of the top cancer centers. I went to Moffitt in Tampa on a road trip after my regional hospitals ocreotide scan, which they failed to give me at the time of the lung tumor......and only figured out their F up after it had spread to my liver. No, I will absolutely not back off that the top national cancer centers must be used. It was not easy for us with the logistics to keep going to Tampa, and we were fortunate to be accepted at Northwestern, which is still a three hour drive each way, or six hours out of a day.

I miss Bob, and after years of having fun with him on the forum, when it really mattered, I got polite, and backed off. I knew what would happen. Yet, I just did not rock the boat, and even though none of it probably mattered based on the aggressive brain tumor, I compromised, and then when he was suffering and should have had the gamma knife surgery, I did not try to get to Pensacola and talk to him in person, while all the other good people on this forum went to his aid, and tried to help him, I simply did nothing. I am not proud of my response, and I am extremely proud of the good people on this forum who actually did go to his aid. I am not beating myself up, but I will never be proud of my timidity when Bob needed someone being an aszhole.