I have a marine biology degree and a writing diploma from the University of British Columbia. I've worked at B.C.'s two leading universities, as a park naturalist, in magazine advertising, and for software and hardware companies. My writing has appeared in Macworld, Vancouver, and LINK magazines, the TidBITS online newsletter, and the Vancouver Sun newspaper, among other publications. I have also appeared on radio and television across Canada, and at several conferences, as an expert on various technical topics.
Before finding out that I had stage 4 metastatic colorectal cancerin 2007, I ran the Penmachine Media Company and worked forNavarik, a company that makes web-based software for the marine shipping industry. I have also been the co-host of theInside Home Recording podcast since 2006.
Late in 2010, I discovered that my cancer is terminal. I expect it will probably kill me sometime in 2011 or early 2012.
http://penmachine-bu.appspot.com/www.penmachine.com/about
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September 4, 2010
Only once in the past three and a half years, since I found out I had metastatic colorectal cancer that had spread to my lungs, have any of my doctors said anything about how long I might live. At the beginning, my oncologist Dr. Kennecke noted that the median survival for patients with my condition is two years after diagnosis.
That was, I repeat, three and a half years ago. You might think that he predicted I had about two years to live, and was simply (and happily) wrong. But that's not even what he was saying. Because he used the word median, he meant that two years after diagnosis, half of patients with metastatic colon cancer are still alive. Therefore, in 2007, my chances of living more than two years were about 50% (assuming I was a typical patient—more on that below).
And he was right about that, since I'm still here. However, if I'd died within two years instead, he'd still have been right, since I would have been in the other 50%. You can see why doctors like using medians for survival prognoses!
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May 4, 2011
Here it is. I'm dead, and this is my last post to my blog. In advance, I asked that once my body finally shut down from the punishments of my cancer, then my family and friends publish this prepared message I wrote—the first part of the process of turning this from an active website to an archive.
If you knew me at all in real life, you probably heard the news already from another source, but however you found out, consider this a confirmation: I was born on June 30, 1969 in Vancouver, Canada, and I died in Burnaby on May 3, 2011, age 41, of complications from stage 4 metastatic colorectal cancer. We all knew this was coming.
That includes my family and friends, and my parents Hilkka and Juergen Karl. My daughters Lauren, age 11, and Marina, who's 13, have known as much as we could tell them since I first found I had cancer. It's become part of their lives, alas.
More ...
http://penmachine-bu.appspot.com/www.penmachine.com/tag/death
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