Nope…wasn’t me.
As a young(ish) person who is presently battling some self-esteem demons, and who knows only too many people who have died recently, and I’ve thought some form of "well, that’s probably for the best, now their families can get on with their lives . . . " (Note: not all of the recently dead of prolonged illness had cancer. In fact, only one of them did, but still . . . )
. . . anyway, right now I’d need some pretty good odds, and some not so miserable treatments. I’m not precisely depressed, and I’m certainly not suicidal, but there are enough days when I’m not convinced that it’s worth the effort to improve my life without health issues, that I think I’d be inclined to just let myself die.
It would infuriate my family–who are already annoyed with me because of my lackadaisacal approach to life, though, so maybe I should reconsider.
I’d been trolling for a bit and had intended to sign up soon. I thought I might jump in on one of the ‘Survivor” threads. This, though, had such resonance for me.
So, I’ll take the plunge.
Both my parents died of cancer, my mother at 49 when I was 22, and my father at 64 when I was 35 (by the end of this, you’ll be able to tell how old I am).
Those, needless to say, are formative in my life.
The day before my mother died, thieves broke into my father’s business that was across the state. That afternoon he stopped by my apartment and knocked on my door. I was working nights and came down in my underwear.
“Mom’s in the hospital,” he told me. “You should probably go and see her.”
I reassured him I would. He told me he had to go to Pittsburgh to deal with the break-in. That night I went to work with the best intentions: I would go to see my mother when I got off a 3:30 AM. But I didn’t. It’s my greatest regret.
That night she died in her sleep. She had first been diagnosed with breast cancer, had had a radical mastectomy and survived for five years. I’m angry at the disease and this notion that people “survive” cancer to me is a fallacy. If you can move beyond cancer, you’ve gotten a reprieve. You haven’t “survived” it. It’s always that looming menace that will ultimately get you.
But then, isn’t that true about life?
In the autumn of 1999 I got a call from one of my brothers.
“Dad’s lost a lot of weight,” he told me. I hadn’t seen him. I hadn’t noticed.
I saw him at Thanksgiving. He had lost weight, but his belly, previously properly rotund for a man of his age, appeared to have grown, nevertheless. Soon he was diagnosed with cancer. At Christmastime, having seen specialists, he was diagnosed with mantle-cell lymphoma with a blastic process. (I hate the term non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma because it makes Hodgkin’s seem like a putting green, which I know it’s not).
But a few minutes perusal on the internet let me know the truth: death sentence.
So I took off the summer and worked around things in the autumn so I could be with him. It became clear in the summer that the first round of chemotherapy he’d gone through hadn’t worked (to finally get to the OP). The oncologist told us that he might go through another round but that that would probably be useless.
Arlene, who had been with my dad for about 10 years at that point, dad and I went out to eat to discuss the situation.
I was in favor of aggressive treatment. Arlene had mixed opinions. My brothers weren’t there to cast a ballot.
“Look,” said dad, “having gone through this with your mother, I know the truth of chemotherapy and that is that it becomes less effective each time. Besides, I know what I’ve got and I know what is going to happen. I’ve had a good life and I’ve raised good sons. My affairs are in order and I have nothing to look back on with regret.”
Two days before he died, one of his friends came to purchase dad’s library. Like a wily carpet merchant, for a half an hour from his bed he haggled over the cost of his library finally setting on a price that could have been negotiated over the phone. He did it, I think, to feel alive.
And then the morning I was supposed to fly out, I got a bit pissed off that Arlene wouldn’t give me a moment to say goodbye. I left the house, and then came back. When I got to the door, I let Arlene know that I was there.
She came to the door.
“I think this is it.”
I held my dad’s hand when he died. It was October 2, 2000.
It’s the most devastating thing that’s ever happened to me.
It’s also the best thing I’ve done in my life.
But, to get back to the OP, it’s a disease that’s deadly and devastating, indeed, but it gives you time. In some ways I’d rather die of cancer than a heart attack. I’d certainly rather die of cancer than Alzheimer’s.
With cancer, you have a window – some are bigger than others – to put things in order, to make amends, to simply tell stories you may never have told. That’s the sad gift of cancer.
% survivability can kiss my rear end (since we’re not in The Pit).
My father’s sister’s breast cancer was detected during a pregnancy ultrasound. They’d just gotten the spiffy new machine and were using it on every patient who was willing. The doctors told her that if survivability was about 25% but if she didn’t get an abortion, it went down to pretty much nothing. 20-some years later, mother and child are alive and well.
My father’s pleural cancer was misdiagnosed pretty much up to his death. They found a lump in his lung; based on the kind of lump it was gave him a 90% survivability; declared him healed; found another lung; gave him an 80%; declared him healed… three years descending to hell. But because the prognosis had been so good he hadn’t done things that would have simplified paperwork (he had a will but from two years before the cancer was detected and because Mom had been badgering him about it for years).
My SiL’s father has, not cancer, Lou Gehrig’s disease. He’s going fast, I’ll be surprised if he sees next Easter. Is he doing anything paperwork-wise? No. Most of the time he even talks about when he walks again (you’ll be wearing multicolored wings then, cop).
If I get a diagnose for something potentially lethal, I’ll make sure to have a list of specific items that go to specific people; if I ever find myself unable to drive and unlikely to recover I’m donating my car “in life”. And if somehow I do recover, hell, I’ll buy a new one 
(Another lump, of course… lungs, he always had two)
It would depend a lot on the odds, and my stage of life (true of everyone, I guess). If I came down with The Big C right now: I’ve got two young kids who really, really need me. I’d have to do anything I could to give myself any real chance of seeing them grow up.
20-30 years from now? not so much. I’d do reasonable stuff if the tradeoffs weren’t so bad. I wouldn’t go through months of chemo unless the chances of buying time - quality time - were very, very good.
I don’t know. Cancer is brutal, but a lot of cancer treatments can be equally brutal. I have a young son and that enters the mix too. To some extent, I would want to be there for him as long as possible. That’s worth of a lot of fighting–but then there is his quality of life too–some treatments may not be worth it.
Actually, this whole thing is too ghastly to contemplate.