Leroy is no longer in pain

Got my final daily email from Leroy Sievers blog. With tears in my eyes I read it. But I personally know in part the pain he's been going through for the past years and I have to pray that he no longer feels the pain. He recently mentioned hospice and getting a hospital bed, and that was a new direction in his life. And had also asked for opinions on what is to be done with his daily blog. I left my comment for him and said when he passes on it should come to the end by Laurie explaining her feelings, updating us to the funeral arrangements. It was his blog, his sharing thoughts that made us cancer survivors hear first hand what this disease takes away but also gives to you.

Here is the entry:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Leroy

Dear friends:

I'm so sorry to bring you this news. Leroy passed away last night. It happened very quickly.

You will hear from Laurie later. In the meantime, please let me tell you something all of you already know, how much this blog and all your comments have meant to Leroy. He felt all the affection and good wishes and strength you sent him every day. He told us that of the many things he had accomplished, he was proudest of My Cancer. The connection he felt with all of you made such a difference in his life.

I feel so privileged to have had a chance to work with Leroy and call him a friend. All of us here do. We will miss him so much, just as you will.

If you'd like to, please leave your thoughts, remembrances, anything you want to write here. I know Laurie will read them. I know you will keep her and Leroy in your thoughts and prayers today.

--Maeve McGoran

7:59 AM ET | 08-16-2008 | permalink



NPR also shows it on the following link:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92028479

And there is also a link on ABC news that ends with this terrific comment:

For months he kept an extra large t-shirt draped over a chair in his home, for all visitors to see. It says, simply: Cancer Sucks.


Sievers Brought Cancer Battle Public
But despite his many accomplishments as a television producer, it was Sievers' writing about his battle with colon cancer that many of his colleagues and friends believe is his greatest legacy.


When his colorectal cancer, first diagnosed in 2001, returned with a terminal diagnosis in late 2005, Sievers began writing about the experience. In a daily blog published on npr.org, weekly podcasts and occassional radio commentaries on NPR's "Morning Edition," Sievers spoke wth startling honesty about living with a cancer that he knew would one day take his life.

But with the strength and stubborness that were his hallmark as a journalist, Sievers defied the medical odds.

First told by doctors he may have only six months to live, Sievers endured a battery of often painful and experimental treatments and procedures, including two brain surgeries, three lengthy back surgeries, multiple rounds of chemotherapy, radiation and radiofrequency ablation.

Each of Sievers' blog entries began with a simple statement of purpose, "After that day, your life is never the same. 'That day' is the day the doctor tells you, 'You have cancer.' Every one of us knows someone who's had to face that news. It's scary, it's sad. But it's still life, and it's a life worth living."






I will miss him as if I've known him. But I have to know now he is no longer in pain.