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I'm Not Ready for Hospice

Former Orlando Anchor Wendy Chioji is not the strongest woman I know.

She is the strongest person I know.

In Orlando TV history, there has not been a more popular news Anchor that Wendy Chioji. She worked for years at WESH and she was loved by both the viewers and her co-workers.

Chioji left TV news 11 years ago after spending 20 years at WESH and she moved to Park City, Utah.

She still popped up on Orlando TV from time to time on a show called “Growing Bolder” which was a series of health specials.

Wendy Chioji knows a lot about health. She has battled cancer time and time again.

While she had continued to kick cancer’s ass, this time it appears that cancer is winning.

Chioj’s doctor told her it might be time to enter hospice.

But, that is not Wendy Chioji.

Hospice is a great service that people that are running out of time enter. Hospice helps people die with dignity and we can’t say enough good things about it.

But, then there is Wendy Chioji.

Chioji writes a blog called, “Living Fearlessly” and that is not just a blog title, it is the way she lives her life.

She wrote about her doctor and his advice to enter hospice.

This is what she said, “The tumors around my heart and lungs are growing and have grown so much that they are squeezing my lungs and my heart and having an impact on basic function, like breathing. My left lung doesn’t work so well any more, and there’s now metastases in my ribs. I’d been suspicious of this for a couple of months, but no one ever mentioned it. (What?) Now it makes sense. Disease is eroding my ribs, and that’s why they’re cracking when I cough. For nothing else but information, it would have been nice (“Nice” is not the right word) to know this two months ago, not that there’s anything I could have done about it.

Then, he whipped out the “H” word. “Hospice is always a reasonable option,” he said to me, the girl of Defy and LiveFearlessly and RelentlessForwardProgress. Maybe he threw it out there just to say it’s ok to be weary of the fight but I couldn’t even process what he was saying. I was stunned. I remember the shock my friend, Scott McKenzie, described when his doctor offered up hospice to him. You think, “He can’t possibly be talking to me.” Well, he was to Scott. And he was to me. Hospice. End of life care. As an old assignment editor at the tv station used to say, “Waiting around, fixin’ to die.” Did he really think that is me now? Ever? I remain unafraid to die, but not now. I’m not ready. I haven’t finished fighting with all the weapons available to me, and I have too many things to do and places to go. Still, it took me a good twenty minutes to get my shit together enough to say, “No hospice. I’m not ready for that.”

I hope that Wendy Chioji sticks around a very long time. I know and she knows that the odds of that happening are not good.

Wendy Chioji is not afraid to die and God knows she is definitely not afraid to live.

When Wendy lives this world, it will not be nearly as nice a place as it was when she was here.

Wendy Chioji is a fucking rock star!

I would advise her to keep fighting the fight, but I know Wendy and no one needs to tell her that.

I love Wendy Chioji!

It is here that you can read her full blog post.


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