This is a story of Earl Haney of Winchester, Massachusetts.
Back in the twenties, he said, I was so worried that ulcers began eating the lining of my stomach. One night, I had a terrible hemorrhage. I was rushed to a hospital connected with the School of Medicine of Northwestern University of Chicago. My weight dropped from 175 pounds to 90 pounds. I was so ill I was warned not even to lift my hand. Three doctors, including a celebrated ulcer specialist, said my case was ‘incurable.” I lived on alkaline powders and a tablespoonful of half milk and half cream every hour. A nurse put a rubber tube down into my stomach every night and morning and pumped out the contents.
“This went on for months...Finally, I said to myself: “look here, Earl Haney, if you have nothing to look forward to except a lingering death, you might as well make the most of the little time you have left. You have always wanted to travel around the world before you die; so if you are ever going to do it, you’ll have to do it now.”
“When I told my physicians I was going to travel around the world and pump out my own stomach twice a day, they were shocked. Impossible! They had never heard of such a thing. They warned me that if I started around the world, I would be buried at sea. “No, I won’t,” I replied. “I have promised my relatives that I will be buried in the family plot at Broken Bow, Nebraska. So I am going to take my casket with me.’
I arranged for a casket, put it aboard ship, and then made arrangements with the steamship company—in the event of my death—to put my corpse in a freezing compartment and keep it there till the liner returned home. I set out on my trip...
The moment I boarded the S.S. President Adams in LA and headed for the Orient, I felt better. I gradually gave up my alkaline powders and my stomach pump. I was soon eating all kinds of foods—even strange native mixtures and concoctions that were guaranteed to kill me. As the weeks went by, I even smoked long black cigars. I enjoyed myself more than I had in years! We ran into monsoons and typhoons which should have but me in my casket, if only from fright—but I got an enormous kick out of all this adventure.
I played games aboard the ship, sang songs, made new friends, stayed up half the night. When we reached China and India, I realized that the business cares that I had faced back home were paradise compared to the poverty and hunger in the Orient. I stopped all my senseless worrying and felt fine. When I got back to America, I had gained ninety pounds and I had almost forgotten I had ever had a stomach ulcer. I had never felt better in my life. I went back to business and haven’t been ill a day since.
First I asked myself, “What is the worst that could possibly happen?” The answer was death.
“Second, I prepared myself to accept death. I had to there was no choice. The doctors said my case was hopeless.
Third, I tried to improve the situation by getting the utmost enjoyment out of life for the short time I had left...If,” he continued “if I had gone on worrying after boarding that ship, I have no doubt that I would have made a return voyage inside my coffin. But I relaxed—and I forgot all my troubles. And this calmness of mind gave me a new burst of energy which actually saved my life.”
