This was a lovely Christmas.
Oddly, however, I find that I’ve been thinking about the five-year anniversary of my esophageal cancer. I had some choices as to therapy, but basically all the advice was to first nuke the tumor with chemo- and radiation-therapy, and then to remove it (along with the rest of the esphagous and the top third of the stomach) with surgery. It was a Pretty Big Deal, and I’ve since learned that there is a 7% five-year survival rate.
Wikipedia has a page listing all of the people with Wikipedia pages who died of esophageal cancer. I’ll list a few of the 434 here:
- Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
- Luis Walter Alvarez
- Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha
- Alfred S. Bloomingdale
- Humphrey Bogart
- Joseph Campbell
- Sammy Davis Jr.
- Richard Dawson
- Jimmy Dorsey
- Mike Evans
- Robert H. Goddard
- Prince Henry of Prussia
- Katharine Hepburn
- Christopher Hitchens
- Larry Hovis
- Robert Kardashian
- Erich Kästner
- Dorothea Lange
- David Lean
- Patricia Leonard
- Giacomo Puccini
- Babe Ruth
- Ann Sheridan
- Fernando Sor
- Billy Strayhorn
- Ed Sullivan
- Charles P. Thacker
- John Thaw
I notice some patterns: quite a few relatives of Queen Victoria; at least two actors from Hogan’s Heroes. There are, in fact, many actors — which might reflect Wikipedia’s bias; or, perhaps, it’s due to there being two different types of esophageal cancer, one of which (not mine) is made more likely by strong drink and smoking.
But regardless, I feel very fortunate.