Mike (Bad Mike) Badolato posted the following on the NTRPG Con Facebook page.
I have been talking to Doug this week, he had to go back into the hospital briefly due to some issues with his liver. Unfortunately, the issues are ones that cannot be fixed. He's going back home today for hospice care, and now that we have a final timeline Doug was pretty upbeat and talked to Gary and I a lot about what is coming next. The cancer spread to his liver, and at this point there is nothing that can be done to prolong his life. His attitude was upbeat and we had a lot of laughs on the phone. Doug is the toughest guy I've ever known and he beat this for four years. I'm going to try to spend as much time as he has left with him the next few weeks at his house. At his home he'll get end of life care from a nurse and be surrounded by family and friends, much better than being in the hospital.
The con is going to continue and it's going to be a living memorial to Doug and all he's done for others and all he's stood for in the years I've known him. The con was and is very important to him so that's why I mention it here and rest assured we are going to do his memory right in the future, with the help of all of you guys. I told him everything is in good hands.
If you wanted to talk to Doug, I'm going to see if Gary and he can set up the Zoom on his computer so you can pop in during certain times. I talked to him a few times over the past few weeks using Zoom and it worked really well. I know he'd like to hear from many of you in the next few weeks, so we'll let you know when this is set up.
Erik, I just heard your podcast associated with BadMike's letter here about Doug. Thanks for the cast, or I might still not have known!
ReplyDeleteGranted, it's too late for me to say goodbye to him in person (except to speak into the ethereal realm), but I will say something kind of him. I didn't get to know him for very long (hardly more than a year), but he had made me the direct offer to fly me down to NTRPG Con, expenses paid, so that I could experience it firsthand. While I didn't take him up on his offer, I believe it was his shared passion for gaming that made him want to share this wonderful annual opportunity with me.
While I still don't foresee myself getting down to North Texas any time soon, I'm hoping to take a bigger part in my local Seattle conventions now that I've learned that Alexandria RPG Library will help cover my attendance fees for any day in which I run a four-hour session for them. So maybe some of Doug's passion leaked over to me anyway since I'm going to try to work in as many local convention days for them that I can (and the Greater Seattle Area has a lot)!