Word: frimmer
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...Frimmer had always been active in the Jewish community, but his illness renewed his focus on his faith. He attended a weekly Torah-study class and began collecting research on Jewish healing services and intercessionary prayer. He said he wanted to become a resource for others, but clearly he was also on a personal quest to examine the frontiers of his own mortality. Companions joined him on his exploration. His daughter Dara, a theology student at Harvard with plans to become a rabbi, embarked on a chaplaincy internship at a Boston hospital. The confluence of her father's terminal illness...
...March, Frimmer's illness had worsened. He suffered from anemia and renal failure. A condition called lymphedema caused fluid to accumulate in his legs, which made walking difficult, then rise into his chest, which made breathing as laborious as "trying to blow up a balloon in a bowl of Jell-O," he said. Unable to get comfortable, he slept sitting up, just an hour or so at a stretch. He was reluctant to use enough medication to quell the pain. "On a good day, I would guess the pain is life affirming. It lets him know he's still here...
...able to care for him full time, he had a circle of close friends that included a couple of nurses, one of them a bereavement counselor; an ethicist who specialized in medical issues; several doctors; and a former patient, Steve Kalafer, who years earlier had been treated by Frimmer for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, now in remission...
...April, Kalafer provided Frimmer, who had been an accomplished photographer before he got sick, with a unique opportunity to reflect on his life. He arranged an exhibit of Frimmer's pictures. Selecting his favorites, seeing them printed and mounted was deeply satisfying. "Looking at my photographs made me realize there were very few places in the world I wanted to go that I hadn't been, other than Antarctica and the base camp at Everest," Frimmer observed. "I can sit back and look at these pictures now and realize these places will never change in my memory because...
...early July, Frimmer was actively dying. His nurse friends alternated spending nights with him to enable Debbie to get some sleep. Dara flew in from Boston...