By Prior Beharry
VETERAN journalist and columnist Basil Carlos Pires has passed away. Fondly called BC, he was known for his satirical and humorous column Thank God It’s Friday.
Pires succumbed to oesophageal cancer on Saturday at the age of 65. In a column in Newsday on October 13, titled Sick and Tired, he wrote about weight loss saying that his knees were the biggest part of his legs followed by his ankles.
He said, “For the last couple of weeks, nights have been closer to sleepless than rejuvenating, largely due to the one thing making me more tired than anything else: the coughing up of bile.
“Just coughing is by itself tiring. Remember how breathless you were at the end of your own last coughing fit. There is nothing that puts the flourish on exhaustion like sitting on the bathroom floor, hugging the toilet for support and gasping for air.
“It may be accurate to say I spend most of my time nowadays just catching myself.
“Since either September 23 or 30, when the NG tube through which I’m being fed was put in, I’ve had almost nothing by mouth. With the fistula between my gullet and my right lung, more than one sip of water can induce debilitating coughing fits that leave my lungs sucking for air, my eyes watering and my big knees wobbly.”
Tributes poured in on social media. His brother Joe Pires posted, “I was happy I got to speak with him yesterday and let him know what a tremendous influence he had on my childhood and thanked him for just being there. His legacy will live on in his writings. To his wife Carla Castagne and children Rosie Castagne-Pires Ben Pires thank you for being his support and rock. His number one priority was always his family. Something he tried to instill in the rest of us. Rest in peace my brother. See you on the other side.”
Speaking about his September 30 column, his wife Carla said, “I have lost words to communicate how devastating this disease is but BC not only has them but can weave them to make you laugh, then maybe even cry. It’s no joke but if you don’t laugh you will surely cry.”
In that column titled Chances are Thin, BC wrote, “On September 1, I weighed 125lbs, 50lbs less than I did on December 10 last, the day of the surgery to remove the tumour from my oesophagus, but only 25lbs away from my target regained weight of 150lbs. On Sunday last, I weighed 105lbs.
“Unbelievably to me, although it happened directly to me, I lost 20lbs in 24 days.
