I also began taking steps to set my financial affairs in order. I engaged a family and estate tax lawyer to begin drafting a new set of wills for myself, and my wife, and to set up a family trust to protect my estate from undue taxation. I was not yet an American citizen and had discovered that living in the USA was Ok as a legal alien, but dying there was definitely not. Although the citizenship process had been underway for almost seven years by that time, I had no guarantee that I would be naturalized before the cancer took me. I am happy to say I completed the citizenship process in September of 2003. In the meantime, setting up a trust was the smart thing to do to avoid probate court and other tax ramifications.

I began to document all my life insurance policies, bank accounts, computer passwords for home accounting and tax software etc. Until you stare death in the face you don’t really realize just how many little things you are responsible for. Although no one is indispensable, our loved ones rely on us for many of these things and allowing them to slip through the cracks would be very problematic. I was resolved that if I died I would not leave a mess behind me.

One other key document that I obtained was a medical power of attorney for my wife to exercise in the event I became incapacitated. Every hospital will demand that you sign such a document before they put you under the knife, for their protection as much as for yours. Using your own document, drawn up in an orderly fashion to reflect your wishes is far preferable to using a boilerplate form provided by the hospital simply to fulfill a legal obligation. I would advise every patient to have one drawn up; putting a trusted loved one in charge of your care should you suffer incapacitation during surgery.

I also followed up on Dr. Joyo's question as to my exposure to asbestos. I must admit that I had no real awareness of asbestos being connected with anything that I had done in my younger years and I suspect this is true for many people. Obviously roofers, building contractors, brake repairmen and heavy industry machinists and plumbers are well aware of their exposure to asbestos. Although they are often shocked at the outcome, they certainly cannot be ignorant of the cause. In my case, however, my exposure wasn’t immediately obvious to me because I was unaware that the products to which I had been exposed contained asbestos. My first reaction therefore was one of denial. I really didn’t think I had been exposed to asbestos at first blush.

I let myself be interviewed by an asbestos investigator. The investigator took me through my work history, step-by-step in an effort to identify the source of my exposure. This was a necessary and useful step since I had little awareness of which of the materials and processes in my prior working life might have involved asbestos. We identified one source from a job that I had done as a teenager working for a home-remodeling contractor as a laborer’s assistant. Through this connection I was exposed to drywall compounds that, I now learned, had contained large doses of asbestos. I was astounded to discover that these harmless looking powders had contained such a horror. I could find no rational excuse for putting asbestos into a drywall compound, but then I hadn’t counted on corporate greed.

My second exposure was during a period of home redecorating when I was refurbishing an older home. As it happens, this was the only time I had ever bought a resale home, and I did so at a time when asbestos was still widely in use. Newly married and still struggling financially, I did all the work myself, from laying asbestos-laced flooring material to doing drywall work with asbestos containing compounds. I even re-shingled the roof with asphalt shingles, which also turned out to contain asbestos. It seemed that most everything I had used and worked with in the late seventies had contained asbestos. Although short, my exposure had been strong enough to eventually give me Mesothelioma. Had I known that asbestos was so prevalent, I would have hired some other poor unfortunate do the work. Cynical huh?

I chose to give a videotaped deposition prior to my surgical date, in order to ensure that my testimony would not be lost in the event of my death during the upcoming surgery. Giving living testimony in such a matter was very important to me since my family would have no other way of verifying how my exposure to asbestos took place if I died suddenly.

I did all this so I could dedicate myself to the fight ahead without any concerns on my mind. This process took several weeks to orchestrate and setting up the trust and creating the wills cost several thousand dollars, but in my estimation it was worth both the money and the effort. It offered me peace of mind and a clear conscience on the verge of the most difficult struggle of my life, which lay ahead of me.

One of the most significant things I accomplished in the period prior to my surgery was the publishing of my first novel, The ADAR Chronicles. As soon as I realized what my predicament was, I approached the publisher about moving up the publication date and I was able to receive my first shipment of books almost a month before I went to Boston.