'Dying with Swag': A German man is live blogging his own death from a brain tumour
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Version 0 of 1. A young man dying from a malignant brain tumour has started blogging about his day-to-day experiences. Dmitrij Panov, from Marburg in Germany, has for the past five months blogged about the effect his terminal diagnosis has had on his approach to life. First diagnosed with a tumour in December 2011, the 25-year-old has undergone years of prolonged and painful radiation treatment and chemotherapy. After two years of being cancer-free, the disease returned late last year and after unsuccessful chemotherapy, Mr Panov decided to begin a blog entitled: "Dying with Swag". Writing in his first post on 1 February 2016, he said: "Hello, my name is Dmitrij Panov and I'm going to die soon. It may sound strange, but that's how it is." Mr Panov has written about the issues he faces, such spending weeks without a bowel movement to eating through a straw due to being unable to swallow food, news.com.au reports. Not holding anything back about his struggle, he wrote on 23 August: "Yesterday probably the most brutal, senseless, most painful, most tired day since the start of treatment ... really, purest fatigue." In a Reddit 'ask me anything' post, he spoke of a change in priorities: "What used to matter to me and doesn't anymore: College. Sex." Writing about his own mortality, Mr Panov wrote candidly on 11 May: "Last time, I wrote that I'm not really afraid of dying. "Maybe I should have said that I'm not really afraid of being dead. "When you're dying, there's still some life in you and sometimes I think that I'm afraid of life." |