Medical Question: Illness early 1980's.

AJ Luck asks:

I just found your website and I have to say….I am hooked! What a great concept!!

I am a fiction writer currently working on a spiritual thriller project.

I have a character that is in her late 70’s in the early 1980’s. Ideally I would like her to suffer about a year before passing away. I need to find a way to have her pass away-possibly in her sleep. I need to find something semi complex for that era that would allow her to hide the (fatal) disease, at least for a considerable amount of time.

I would love your thoughts!!

Thanks so much!

Jordyn says:

Here are a few ideas for your illness.

Cancer: There are a couple of cancers that when discovered, even with treatment, death might occur in about a year. A few to consider would be brain, liver, pancreas or kidney.

Neurological Disease: Here you could do a rapidly progressing ALS which is also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.

Cardiac: In general, she could have congestive heart failure. There are a number of causes. This could have her feeling generally unwell for a long time and then you could have sudden death really at any point in your story line. Here's a blog post I did along those lines.

 http://www.jordynredwood.com/2010/11/historical-medical-question.html.

Hope this helps AJ and good luck with your novel!

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AJ is a Christ follower trying to encourage others by being transparent in her trials and triumphs. You can find her a http://randomnessofluck.com/.