Today is my one year anniversary of being diagnosed with a clival chondrosarcoma. One year ago I was called the day after my MRI with the news that I had a golf ball size brain tumor growing under my pituitary, around my optic nerve and pressing into my brain stem.

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

~Dylan Thomas

<Back to School (1986) with Rodney Dangerfield>
Dr. Diane Turner: "Thornton, what does that poem mean to you?"
Thornton Melon: "It means, 'I don't take shit from no one.'"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTv1Dmu5CYc