Foreword to:
Goodbye, Walter: The Inspiring Story of a Terminal Cancer Patient
by Dr. C. Stratton Hill
1996 recipient of the Humanitarian Award of the American Cancer Society
and author of Drug Treatment of Cancer Pain

Walter Schifter was a successful entrepreneur who had lived a full life, and had moved from Evansville, Indiana, to Sun City West, Arizona, to enjoy a comfortable retirement.

Then came the bad news: He was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Treatments, however, proved successful and drove the disease into remission. Nevertheless, in 1996 thirteen years after the original diagnosis, the cancer returned. Slowly, it crept through his body. A metastasis lodged in his knee. Treatments to his knee left nearby bones so brittle that they broke, and left the tissue charred.

The disease sapped his strength and drained his appetite. The pain was consuming. Once a proud protector and provider for his family, he now had to rely on a wheelchair powered by his wife for his very mobility. He felt helpless, useless, profoundly depressed. When he asked his physician for a stronger pain medication, the physician refused.

For a time, the solution that seemed to make the most sense for Walter was suicide. There was a loaded handgun in the bedroom cabinet—it would have been so easy...

But the story has a happier ending than that. Hospice care, with compassionate treatment of Walter’s pain, attention to his needs, administered by staff and physicians that understood what he was going through, brought meaning back to his life.

Goodbye, Walter: The Inspiring Story of a Terminal Cancer Patient, is a diary of the final weeks of Walter’s life. They reveal a man with a rich personality who was able to learn to enjoy life right up until the very end. They show a man who discovers his mission—a mission to teach the rest of us what is really important in life and to show us how we can help other Walters in the world.