Dale Maxwell, M.D., (October 3, 1939-June 24, 1997).

The results are in. You are going to die soon.

What Would You Do?

If you’re like me, you’ve wondered how you’d face a really terrifying diagnosis. Bravely? Prayerfully? Drunkenly?

I picture myself running around the neighborhood from house to house banging my head on front doors and screaming for help. That’s not what Dr. Dale Maxwell did. He took on his last chapter the way he took on life.

He shared it with his friends and now you.

Dale, practicing psychiatry in Oklahoma and then Atlanta, dedicated himself to sparking creativity in others and in showing other people how to enjoy life. If an element of living could bring joy, Dale became an expert and lured others into the experience. His specialty was bringing people together–shrinks, musicians, writers, actors, chefs, all sorts of people. He did this because he thought we’d enjoy knowing each other and that our percolating together could change the world.

Maybe this whole blog experience has been about providing Dale a stage. I’d love for that to be true. He’d get a kick out of his words touching people all over the world.

Dale loved words and stories in all forms. He loved the life stories of his psychiatric patients. He wrote Greek myths from a Texan point of view, wrote a song for Emmy Lou Harris and drank beer and encouraged Garth Brooks in the old days in Stillwater, Oklahoma. He wrote, produced, directed and starred in plays. He went to chef schools to become a king’s chef with you as the king. Whatever you want.

Polio left him unable to walk like the rest of us, but apparently you don’t have to be able to walk to change lives. I’ll let you read his words and decide for yourself.

Dr. Dale’s Journal:

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“GUESS 

WHAT?

July 1995.  I coughed up blood.  After six weeks, fifteen thousand dollars, a little pain, and a lot of inconvenience I HAD A DIAGNOSIS.  Squamous Cell Carcinoma.  One solitary peripheral nodule and spread to hilar lymph nodes, same side.  Stage III A.

YEA?  WHAT’S THAT MEAN??

At the end of two years –50% of us Stage III A’s are dug in like kudzu, the other half live with the dinosaurs.  40% (of the remaining 50%) are still “Dancing with Wolves” after five years.  So–after five years from the date of diagnosis–the twenty percent that are “Pure of Heart” (actually, I hope it is determined by some other criteria) are “Dancing.”

WHAT NOW? 

I have no symptoms.  I feel great!  But, “They” want to give me chemotherapy and radiation therapy. So I guess I’ll humor “Them.”

–Dale Maxwell. July 1995.”