How hard would you press your loved one to get treatment for cancer?

In My Humble Opinion
1

This isn’t a hypothetical; I heard about this very situation this morning and it left me reeling.

**PLEASE NOTE: I’m not asking if the person who has been diagnosed has the right to refuse treatment. I believe any person has that right. That is not the question. **

I have an acquaintance, a guy I know from school. His wife died of endometrial cancer about six months ago. Like me and my late husband, they were childless, and they were together for 30+ years. I only became aware of her illness a couple of months before she died, so I was not privy to anything that they went through, treatment-wise.

But this morning I found out from someone else that the wife (I’ll call her Mary Lou) refused ALL traditional, allopathic, mainstream treatment from the beginning. She ONLY sought “alternative” treatments. I don’t know exactly WHAT those were in her case, but I’m guessing stuff like massage, herbs, Reiki, and maybe farther-afield things like sound therapy, crystals, whatever. I don’t know. When I heard that she flat refused to to any chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, etc. I couldn’t wrap my brain around that.

Here comes the part I’m asking about: the person who told me said that her husband (call him Curtis) left it up to her. EEK! I do know that several friends of theirs who had different types of cancer did talk to her and tell her that the treatment can be long and unpleasant, but if it works, you are alive at the end of it. I was diagnosed with breast cancer last year and my treatment was short and benign, but I know others who have been through the wringer, BUT THEY SURVIVED.

Now, I’m NOT talking about someone who is 90+ years old who is diagnosed with a rare cancer and would be looking at treatment that would pull the props out from under their quality of life. This was a relatively young(ish) woman with a devoted husband/partner, a treatable cancer, and the prospect of survival.

Now that he is alone, he is absolutely devastated-- the depth of the loss truly doesn’t not hit you until your spouse/partner is dead. The magnitude of the loss is beyond anything you could have imagined, even when they were very ill. Frankly, I don’t think he was expecting to be hit this hard by the loss of her from his life.

So my long-winded question is: if you were the partner/spouse, how much pressure would you put on your SO to seek or at least explore the possibility of conventional treatment (along with “alternative” treatments)? Or would you truly back off and say “it’s up to him/her”?

If you have experience with this scenario or or know of such a situation, I’d especially like to hear from you. And it doesn’t have to be cancer, but some disease treatable with drugs, surgery, etc.

P.S. I have another very very close friend, whose husband was diagnosed with cancer and she took the laissez-faire approach, and now, 20 years later, she is STILL kicking herself around the block that she did not put more pressure on him to aggressively seek treatment. She misses him dreadfully and is also riddled with excruciating guilt.

**TO REPEAT MY EARLIER NOTE: I’m not asking if the person who has been diagnosed has the right to refuse treatment. I believe any person has that right. That is not the question. **

2

Very, very hard.

3

I’m fairly certain that this would result in divorce in my own case. If my spouse doesn’t care enough about himself or me to do everything possible to cure himself, I’m not gonna stick around and watch him die. Mr. Athena would be even more adamant if it were me, I’m pretty sure. I know that’s shitty, but heck if I’m gonna sit around watching a loved one die through nothing more than stupidity on their part.

That said, that’s if there was a therapy with a reasonable chance of survival. If it was something like “this MIGHT work but it will for sure make your quality of life to to shit” then it’s a different story. But a curable form of cancer that just requires a tried-and-true therapy that might not be fun but will probably work? Yeah, if you say no to that, you’re going to say no without me.

4

This is a difficult hypothetical, because I can’t imagine myself marrying the kind of person who would have any inclination toward bullshit/woo cancer therapies.

Were I to make such a grievous mistake, I would certainly advocate very hard for the most effective treatments evidence-based medicine could provide. I would use whatever reasoning powers I could summon, but it would be important to understand her reasons (whether emotional or rational) for eschewing conventional treatments so I could provide appropriate reassurance or counterargument.

If she insisted on going that route, it would be a horrible disappointment to discover that someone I shared my life with could think like this. I don’t think I could bring myself to support my spouse’s pursuit of bullshit/woo treatment (by “support,” I mean things like driving her to/from appointments with practitioners of these treatments).

5

Wow, what a timely question. This Thursday marks the 10-year anniversary of the day my mother died of cancer without seeking medical treatment (she was in her fifties when she died). In our case, the idea of medical treatment was mentioned but not pushed very hard at all. She had lived her entire life in a religion that did not seek medical treatment. We were concerned that if we pushed her too hard to seek medical treatment, it would agitate her, and agitating someone in an already weakened state is akin to making her die sooner. FWIW, my mother did go into a care facility, and she requested that my father visit her less frequently because she wanted only healing thoughts around her, and his desire for her to seek medical attention was interfering with her prayers.

6

I would let the patient make the decision. Often the treatment is worse than the disease, and even now, as a medical librarian who has spent hundreds of hours looking up chemo protocols, I would be torn as to going through it all. It is not for the faint of heart, and doesn’t promise an improved quality of life, or life itself.

7

There is too much unknown to give a complete answer for me…what kind of cancer? How far has it progressed? First time fighting cancer?

My ex was a breast cancer survivor in her 20’s and has the gene mutation that makes her more likely to get ovarian cancer as well. She was very upfront with how bad her treatment was the first time around and kept saying “I just have to say, I Love You, but please realize that if I get diagnosed for ovarian, or any other type of cancer, I WILL NOT be seeking treatment. I know it would be hard for you, but I can’t go through it again”

She did has the lasting effects of what she called “cancer brain” where the treatment diminished her memory.

8

Since I require a couple of different maintenance medications as does my mother and brother, I can’t see me getting involved with someone who would go the alternative medicine route.

In the case of my grandmother, she just insisted that she was perfectly fine. She’d never had high blood pressure before, so it was impossible that she had it now. She’d take the medicine that the doctor prescribed. For awhile. Then one of my goofy dumb cousins would tell her that some people eat celery to lower their blood pressure and she’d quit taking the medicine and start eating celery. She’d say “But I didn’t tell her to stop taking the pills!”

"yeah, but she’ll grasp at any straw not to take the pills. Next time you read some half-baked click bait story, keep it to yourself. "

Then came the stroke and I lost my otherwise sharp as tack grandmother two years before she died. I have absolutely NO patience with woo medicine.

9

Yeah,

There is a difference in getting diagnosed with stage one endometrial cancer and going after it aggressively and getting diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer.

If my loved one had little chance of survival, and any extension of life would come at the expense of quality of life - I’d not only not push, I’d discourage anything but palliative treatment.

If its early stage, treatable - throw everything you can at it.

As for woo treatments - as long as it palliative woo (acupuncture, massage, aromatherapy), I’m fine with it. Makes you feel better, go for it. “Curative” woo should be prosecuted.

10

This. I’ve known too many people who regretted “fighting” their cancer. I’m there for them either way, but it is their decision.

11

It depends on the specifics, but I’d push pretty hard if it seemed likely that treatment would work and be worthwhile.

My fiance and I recently went through this with his mother who was diagnosed late last year. After almost making it through the first round of treatment she was really waffling on continuing with the next phase. The side effects were making her miserable and she kept reading (and posting) garbage woo articles on Facebook. Pretty soon she started talking about not continuing treatment and stopping all of her medications, even for unrelated conditions. With her it came down to three things: she was miserable from side effects, hated taking meds of any kind, and she was terrified it was all for nothing.

There were arguments but we did our best to be sympathetic and supportive. She agreed to continue with chemo and radiation and her doctors recently were confident enough that the cancer was gone that they stopped, since at that point the negatives from side effects were outweighing the possible “finish treatment just in case” benefits. She’s still godawful about her meds, but that’s a much longer term issue than the 8-10 months of cancer treatment and she ultimately gets to make her own decisions, as stupid as we think they are.

12

Thanks for these very thoughtful and thought-provoking replies.

And I agree, it depends on the stage, type of cancer, age of the patient, prior experience, etc.

13

:confused::dubious:

What does this mean?

If you are saying that you would refuse to strap a coherent and lucid but non-consenting patient to a gurney and pump them full of chemo against their will, then congratulations, you possess the fundamental respect for human rights that we expect from the average person these days.

If you are saying that you would make no attempt whatsoever to advocate against a course of treatment that you strongly believe will not provide the patient with the results they desire, well, that’s a different matter entirely.

14

I’d do everything in my power to convince them to get treated.

15

Maybe not the same situation, but my mother was in her 60’s when her cancer returned after 20 years of being cancer-free. Her oncologist recommended an all-out chemotherapy attack. The first round damn near killed her (literally: the doctors told my father he should send for their kids to say goodbye.) She pulled through, but that was the end of the attempts to fight it. She died six months later. If my father ever disagreed with her decision he never said a word about it to either my sisters or me.

16

No, not the sitch I’m describing. Perfectly understandable decision. I’m so sorry about your mom.

17

I would strongly urge a loved one to get treatment that had a chance of at least improving the quality of the life they had left. VERY storongly urge, with lgic, reason and a bit of guilting involved. But in the end I would respect whatever course they chose for themselves. People have free will and since I can’t see inside the hearts or minds of anyone I really would, in the end, have no idea why a loved one would choose a course I thought foolish.

Not quite two years ago my beloved aunt discovered she had stage four liver cancer, with very little time left even using conventional therapies. She chose simple hospice care, as no matter what treatment she used(and treatment would have been hell) she was going to die very soon. In her sort of case I probably would have done the same thing.

18

I have my rights, and ultimately it’s my decision. I’m not an island unto myself, though. I have two preschool children, and if I were to choose some nonsensical “treatment” plan that leads to an early grave, I’m leaving them to grow up without me and my wife with the burden of raising them. I think she would have the right to use just about any emotional weapon at her disposal to get me to choose real treatment.

19

I’ve been through chemotherapy and it was a LIVING HELL!

With that said, I would be informative - teach / learn all there is about the various options, then leave it up to the patient - what to do.

I would respect his/her decision.

As for myself, I don’t know if I would go through that again. I would strongly consider not doing it. But probably would go through it again.

20

Endometrial cancer is difficult to treat and has a poor prognosis. I’m guessing that when she was diagnosed, it was already too late to cure her, and she decided that her QOL would be better using these alternative treatments than it would have been using “standard” therapies. Chances are, she was right.

It’s not uncommon for people who are diagnosed with lung or pancreatic cancer to do the same thing.

Terrible situation either way.