i2f not doing well

[Maurice Johnson]

You may remember John, who used to contribute as i2f, or imagine2frolic.
His cancer has re-developed, and he is not doing well.
We stay in touch on cruisersforum.com. You can get up to date with him on the thread, Sailing with Cancer.
He and his wife Melanie have had a hard two years.

[tcrist]

I have been wondering about him. Have been tracking his boat (or at least trying to) an there have been no updates for quite a while.

[Maurice Johnson]

John passed away today.
He will be missed tremendously by the cruising group of sailors.
Our love and prayers for Melanie.

[deckofficer]

Originally Posted by Maurice Johnson

John passed away today.
He will be missed tremendously by the cruising group of sailors.
Our love and prayers for Melanie.

You must be Blue Stocking over there. My name is Bob, and other than talking to John just on the CF, I didn't know him but loved the pictures he posted to CF. Would you, as a friend of John, mind if I post the "Pig" picture here? If he ever made it to Cobra functions, maybe some of the good folks here would remember him from the picture.

Bob

[392cobra]

John was one of the good guys.
He will be missed.

Here is a picture of John with his wife Melanie


God Bless you both.

[deckofficer]

Here is another.......

[Ron61]

I will miss him. We kept in touch by email until he started getting worse. He liked to talk about when he had his muffler shop in Oakland and how happy he was to be out of there. He was a kind and caring person and I will miss his emails.

Ron

[deckofficer]

Originally Posted by Ron61

I will miss him. We kept in touch by email until he started getting worse. He liked to talk about when he had his muffler shop in Oakland and how happy he was to be out of there. He was a kind and caring person and I will miss his emails.

Ron

Ron,

You knew him better than me. I knew him from the Cruiser's Forum. Do you think it would be OK if I shared some of his cruising pictures on this thread? John from Club Cobra passed today

[Ron61]

Bob,

John wouldn't mind at all and in fact he would probably be honored by it. I am trying to find his address right now as I have it in one of my books. Post all of the pictures that you want. I have some good ones that he sent me on a CD somewhere around this mess of mine.

Ron

[deckofficer]

Thanks Ron.

When it is time for me to bail on life, I hope folks won't mourn for me but rather celebrate my life. John had some of his best times towards the end and I want people to enjoy his life.

[deckofficer]

Melanie finished John's blog here Sailing with Cancer- One Man's race against time!: John's Passing

Stop by and leave a message, I know it would mean a lot to Mel.

[392cobra]

The good news in this sad ending is that John,with the help of Melanie,found & accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior shortly before he passed.

[VRM]

Wow - that is really too bad. I always enjoyed talking/debating with him. He was always logical, rational, and most importantly, pretty damn funny! Rest in peace John.

Steve

[Daddisgrl]

I'm so sorry to those that knew him. I just spent some time trying to read about him. He has a few posts at places but did not really talk about his cancer except to say he found something in his neck. From things he was saying; I wasn't sure if he had head & neck or brain cancer. It took me a while to get the answer

As others may have not known John and I have started our trip from Florida down to the Caribbean and crossed the Panama Canal last year. Our goal was to sail to Hawaii on the trade winds and make our way down to Northern California. Unfortunately, John got sick on our attempt to cross the pacific and had to fly back to USA for medical emergency. Back in States, he had been diagnosed with cancer of the head and neck. It is called small cell carcinoma, unfortunately he never even smoke at all to have a cancer of the neck.

Normally; head & neck cancer is squamous cell carcinoma; think Michael Douglas. My hub was diagnosed as stage 4 a few years ago. These days; its from HPV & not smoking. What he had was a type of lung cancer & it sounds like it spread. What I'm reading is there is no "cure". Lung cancers are very under-funded. If anyone wants to do something for him in his memory; making a donation to one of the lung cancer charities in his name could help fund better understanding of it.

If anyone notices a sore throat or a neck node that swells & does not seem to go away; find the best University cancer center you can get to & see the head & neck department. The worst part of these cancers are that it takes so long to diagnose. It took over a month for my hub to be diagnosed locally; part of the problem is that they have to send biopsies out. Our ENT knew my hubs node was cancer but the 1st needle biopsy showed nothing. The 2nd was positive. From there we went to an ENT at a large University hospital where this ENT knew what was wrong because he sees so much of it every day. Our local ENT while I'm thankful for him; wanted to explore which would have set him back at least a month if not more due to sending a biopsy out. The larger center has a pathology lab right there & there are no unneeded surgeries.

If you think you may have head & neck cancer; which is on the rise; please go to one of the cancer boards to get help; they can point you in the direction you need to go in. If anyone needs information; PM me.

I'm sorry for your loss. He looked like a wonderful guy. I respect that he chose to live the life he had left. I lost my beloved dad to terminal cancer where he did a clinical trial & while he was able to "live" 8 months; he was not in good shape & was admitted a total of over 2 months; which was how long he'd live without treatment. Another family member passed from brain cancer without treatment & was able to have a decent quality of life.



.