BERKS COUNTY MAN SHARES STEPS IN HIS END-OF-LIFE JOURNEY
Before Nov. 2, the only ailment that was persistently bothersome to Dr. Bruce May, 93, was his arthritis. But the pain in his joints didn’t keep him from driving to the gym to work out three days a week doing cardio and strength training.
After getting a hip replacement in the 1980s, he figured out a way to manage the lingering discomfort with applications of pain gel when needed, a daily dose of ibuprofen before bedtime and a morning stretch regimen.
May, who lives in Exeter Township, Berks County, found himself a little more winded going up stairs or walking uphill in the past year. He chalked it up to being in his 90s, so didn’t feel it was in need of any special attention at his regular doctor visits. It was on Nov. 2 when he realized he didn’t have a choice but to get some medical attention.
“I was on the treadmill walking at my normal speed at the gym when I noticed I was having a lot of trouble breathing,” May said. “I realized I had to get to urgent care.”
His wife, Kathy, picked him up because he felt too faint and unsteady on his feet to get behind the wheel of his car. That visit to urgent care led to a trip to Reading Hospital to undergo further testing. Fluid was found in his lungs, so he underwent a thoracentesis for them to remove it. But more testing was needed to make a definitive diagnosis.
Next up was a biopsy. The test caused a shift in focus from his arthritis pain to an internal tenderness and extreme soreness related to the procedure.
“The discomfort was strong initially, so the pain in my hips was something I became less aware of,” he said.
Awaiting the test result brought up feelings of anxiety that were new to May, a retired optometrist who practiced in Berks for 40 years. The results came in.
“I had no sense of where I was headed or where I was going,” he said. “Then the test came back as lung cancer with metastasis, so it’s not limited specifically to the lung.”
Given a prognosis of four months to live without treatment, May has done everything but sit around and accept his fate. While he feels prepared to face dying, he has decided to try prolonging or extending the quality of his life with immunotherapy. He received his first transfusion last month and will go back every three weeks as long as he continues to see value in it.
“Given my age and the stage of the cancer, I wasn’t a candidate for chemotherapy or radiation therapy,” he said.
May was pleasantly surprised by how good he felt following his first immunotherapy treatment. He shared some of the most noteworthy physical improvements he has experienced since his diagnosis just over two months ago.
“The biggest change was appetite,” he said. “Early on I had almost no appetite and had to force food and had no interest in eating. In the first several days after immunotherapy, there was a return of appetite and a willingness to eat. Other elements I found I was having were a lot of bowel issues and that was noticeably improved. The same is true of my ability to advance hydration.”