Johnny's Parents About His Condition example essay topic

We were asked to choose a book dealing with death, dying, and mourning and analyze it using what we have learned in class and in our text. I chose to read "Death Be Not Proud" a memoir, by John Gunther because it deals with a true to life struggle with cancer of the brain. This cancer occurs in a boy who is only seventeen when it kills him. The book is his fathers memoir of his brave, spirited and persistent young sons struggle through it all and his remarkable will to survive. It also goes through many things that we covered in class such as the funeral process and rituals people may go through. John Gunther Jr. was born on November 14, 1929 and led a very fulfilling life all the way up until his death.

John was a very intelligent teen who loved school and making his parents proud. He was also the type of person who never thought of himself and put everyone ahead of him. Johnny was very much involved in his studies and was always up for creating new ideas in the fields of chemistry and physics. He was also a wonderful artist as well as a good musician who played the violin, and was editor of his schools paper. Johnny's only dream in life was to graduate high school and get accepted into Harvard. His plans for the future were all put to a halt on the day of April 25, 1946.

What he thought to be just a stiff neck turned out to be a brain tumor that would forever alter his life. The neurologist told Johnny's parents about his condition and they agreed not to tell him how serious it was. When they first operated on Johnny's skull they said that the tumor was the size of an orange and they were able to remove half of it, which led to a quick recovery. He was determined to get out of the hospital because he didn't want to miss any school and wanted to get his work done. After the surgery Johnny was performing well and the doctors were surprised.

Johnny went on to write a letter to Albert Einstein and was giving him ideas about the law of gravitation. He was always putting his ideas to work. Johnny unlike others bragged about his disease. The minute Putnam, one of his doctors, told him what he had he picked up the phone and called people to tell them that they drilled holes in his head and that he had a spinal tap. To me I don't know why anyone would do such a thing but it is probably due to the fact that he is scared and doesn't know the truth about what is going on. The doctors first diagnosed Johnny with an astrocytoma, which is comparatively benign, but then it worsened into an astroblastoma undergoing transformation.

Johnny's father wasn't to sure about his condition so he did research on it to find out more about the effects of a brain tumor. What he read was that his condition now was somewhat OK, but if it transformed into something with the prefix glio, it would be deadly. The one question that his mother and father were asking themselves was how he got this terrible disease and why. They felt as though reason itself was being destroyed by unreason.

They were also skeptical about the future of their son but were strong not only for themselves, but for Johnny. They went on to tell Johnny that the tumor was dead and that he was feeling the effects of the healing. Johnny knowing that he was somewhat ill but recovering wrote a prayer called the "Unbelievers Prayer". This was unusual because he never prayed or was very religious.

This situation is somewhat normal because as people become ill, no matter what their beliefs, they usually turn to prayer. It makes them feel better and it is a way for them to get their feelings out instead of holding them in. As time went by, Johnny's disease was getting worse and was transformed into a glioblastoma tas, which is deadly. Johnny started to become weak especially on his left side and his eyesight started to deteriorate. He was now going for x-ray therapy and was scared because he new he had something more serious than he thought. He tried to look in the dictionary to find out exactly what he had but much to his surprise he couldn't find it.

His parents did everything they could to hide Johnny's true disease from him. I often wonder why they made this decision. Is it because his mother and father may feel as though Johnny won't be able to handle the truth? We really don't know because they don't tell the reader. Johnny's doctors went on to tell his parents that he only had a few months or so left to live while other doctors said there were things they could try to prolong his life. This was always a problem for the Gunther family because Johnny had a total of twenty-three doctors so it made things very confusing.

They decided to try some of the doctor's suggestions and the first one was mustard therapy. This therapy was designed to attack the tumor cells in Johnny's body. It worked for a period of time but the reactions deteriorated so they tried something new. The next step was the Gerson Diet. This was designed by one of Johnny's doctors and was a diet that is potassium free and sodium rich. After a while Johnny was upset with all of the treatment they were giving him and especially the diet because he couldn't eat what he wanted to.

As time went by the diet seemed to be helping and his parents thought that he was going to recover. Through all of this, Johnny never gave up on anything. He still did what he could and always wanted to keep up with his schoolwork. He also still joked about his tumor because to him it was going away.

As the days progressed, Johnny's physical status started to change. He began to sway alot, lost half of his eyesight in each eye, and was dazed due to the poison from the bump. Due to his worsening condition, he was told he could no longer attend Deerfield, his current school, and this greatly disappointed him. The bump on Johnny's head was drained again and to everyone surprise the tumor had left. There were no more bumps. The miracle had happened!

February of 1947 started well and nobody knew how or why but Johnny was back on his feet again and as vibrant and alive as ever. He was able to walk again and do the things he used to with no hesitations. Johnny was glad that the tumor was gone but told his father that if the tumor was to come out again it would be for the last time, and he was right. For a short period of time he was "cancer free" then to everyone's surprise the tumor was back and he sharply worsened. The bump started to get bigger and bigger and on February 19, amnesia hit. Frances, his mother, had to help him jog his memory and was hoping it was only temporary.

Johnny would forget what happened the day before and even the year and date. Frances came to realize that the amnesia attacks only came when he noticed the doctors were worried about him. As time went by his amnesia got better and he got used to being around the doctors without acting up. Johnny completed his courses at Deerfield and graduated from there on June 14, fourteen months after he was last in school. He then went on to take the entrance test at Harvard and was so happy he got that far he said that he never felt better. Due to Johnny's worsening condition, his father told him that he got into Harvard and he was e static.

Time passed and Johnny still pushed to the maximum to do everything he wanted. He even taught his dad how to play chess by writing down the directions. He never gave up on life and always kept himself active, which I admired very much. Then the most terrifying moment occurred. His brain started to hemorrhage and this was it. The doctors new that Johnny's time had come.

When the ambulance arrived at their house and took him to the hospital everything went wrong. The emergency door was locked and when they needed the doctors most, they were nowhere to be found. The moment they dreaded had now happened. After fifteen months of dealing with this disease, Johnny died in his sleep at 11: 02 p.m. on June 30, 1947.

Frances reached out for him and held his hand while saying goodbye. His parents and doctors were happy that Johnny didn't die painfully, like other people in his condition, and were also happy that they were able to prolong his life as long as they did. Johnny's deathbed scene was greatly affected by the way that he died because he was terminally ill and in and out of the hospital. As Johnny's life came to an end, he let out three gasps of air and started to tremble. His lips then became blue and his hands cold. His father said that "like a thief, Death took him".

Since Johnny was never actually told he was going to die, he had no control over his death but much control over the way he decided to go through life. The doctors had alot of influence on his parents about choosing not to tell him and by doing all they could to prolong his life. For Johnny, dying didn't begin when he was diagnosed, but rather when the action of death actually occurred. The effects that death had on the main characters were expected. This was because the family was well aware of what could and would happen, but since Johnny never knew how serious a condition he had his death was a happy one. When he died, he died thinking he was accepted to Harvard and knowing how much his family loved him.

Since Johnny didn't know he was dying we really weren't presented with his meaning of death. I feel as though Johnny would have thought death to be a new beginning because he seemed as though he always welcomed new ideas. In this story dying was presented as realistic as could be. It was shown to be a time of struggling, but throughout Johnny's downfall he was still very much alive.

He did everything he could and surprised everyone with his persistency. He also shocked his doctors because of his will to live as long as he did. Even though he went through alot of rough times, he never gave up on making people happy and doing things for himself. I enjoyed the fact that the father presented the bad times as well as all of the good because it shows how realistic his illness was but it didn't hold him back. The only thing I really had a problem with was the fact that they decided not to tell Johnny how serious a condition he had. I think people have the right to know whether or not they are going to die and even though he was only seventeen, he was more than capable enough to handle the news.

I felt he showed himself to be a very strong person. If he knew that he was going to die or knew about the seriousness of his condition, he could have been able to do last minute things and have more control over his life and death. At the end of the book, I found the funeral to be the ultimate closure. They made Johnny up to look exactly how he did when he was alive and that is very important. Why make someone up to look nothing like they did when they were alive. He was in an open casket, dressed in a tweed suit that had a spot on the lapel because when he was alive he had a spot there.

The funeral was also filled with many flowers and only close friends and family attended. Johnny's parents said that although he can't visit them, they can and will always visit him. At the end of the story their final sense of closure was driving along the Hudson River where they had driven with him so many times because he loved going there. I enjoyed reading this book because it was a true story about the life of a young boy and was written by his father. It opened your eyes to death and made you see that a young boy with such a strong will didn't let anything hold him back. It showed me that his spirit kept him alive so long even though he never really knew he was dying.

I found it very strange that on the front cover of the book, they have p 111 written on it. I didn't realize this until I was done reading the book and when I did, I looked on that page in the book and to my surprise, that was the page that Johnny had died. I have never seen an author do this before and wonder why he chose to do so. Overall, this book was very easy reading and I enjoyed it very much. Now I am someone who really hates to read so it surprised me how quickly I finished it. I would recommend this book to anyone but especially people who think that when they get sick life stops and you lose your will to do things.

It will make you see that if a seventeen-year-old boy has the will to survive, anyone can.