Fight with everything you’ve got, or know that you will lose everything there could ever be. It’s not such a difficult choice when you face it.
The OP didn’t have any bearing on what they thought regarding their symptoms, rather it was a polling question that came from something in his life.
Your post, however, is jerkish and threadshitting, cynyc. You’ve been warned about this before; here’s another.
Do not post like this again in this forum or your posting privileges may come under review.
I don’t think anyone can definitively answer this question until it actually happens to them. Someone might say “No way! Pull the plug!” now. But when forced to *actually *face one’s own mortality in the form of a one- to twelve-month death sentence from a doctor (instead of just *imagining *facing it due to hypochondria), we find strength we didn’t know we were capable of before. People who lose limbs or get paralyzed may have previously thought, “There’s no way I’d want to go on living if that happened to me!” Then it happens to them, and surprise! They want to keep on living. The human will to live is much stronger than you’re giving it credit for. I suppose the reverse is also possible (someone might think they want to fight, then throw in the towel once chemo actually starts). I’ve never heard of a case like that, though.
As to what I would do in these hypothetical circumstances? Even if I were diagnosed with a really aggressive late-stage 100% terminal cancer, I would still want to fight it. Even though my life may be dysfunctional, I’m way too young to give up. There is still a lot I’d like to do and see before I die. I’d make a bucket list and start scratching shit off as fast as possible. Also, my struggle and treatment would serve the greater purpose of contributing to a greater body of information for cancer research–that’s a cause I find worthy of my suffering.
And let’s face it, at the end of the day I would rather be alive and unhappy than dead. *Even if *it means I have to undergo nauseatingly painful chemotherapy. I wouldn’t be able to get a scrip for medical marijuana in this state, but I’d start smoking it nonetheless–I’m sure it would help a lot. Even if it wouldn’t make me feel objectively good, it would make me feel better enough to justify fighting.
My mother had an inoperable brain tumor and was given 2-3 months, but she died 6 weeks later, mainly from the effects of the treatment.
I’m so very, very sorry about your mother. Pancreatic cancer is a different kind of animal. Is there some way you can get checked?
As for myself, in my situation my body took over and fought like hell with little input from my mind. I’m still here, so…
Well I haven’t had cancer yet, but I did suffer a bout of Fournier’s gangrene/Necrotizing fasciitis (aka flesh-eating bacteria) a few years ago. I never considered not fighting to live.
It depends. 20 years of unremitting agony or five years of decent quality? At this point, I’d go with the second option but I’m not faced with any such decision, so I don’t know what I’d choose
My grandfather died of a rather nasty bone marrow disease; by the end, periodic blood transfusions (which had helped his quality of life earlier in his treatments) kept him alive but didn’t ease his pain or help his strength. He spent his last six months shuttling between the hospital and nursing home, and spent his last two weeks unable to do as much as feed himself, saying “I hate this life.” In retrospect, I wish we had argued against the last transfusion, and let him go in less helplessness and pain. Since then, the father of a friend died of a related disease; his illness progressed to leukemia, and he went from weak but on his feet to bedridden and dying in his own home in less than a month. I found myself envying a bit how quickly he went.
I know from experience that I’m a fighter. I’d go down swinging with both guns blazing, it’s just how I’m wired.
Depends on what stage you are in life. Before he popped his clogs, my elderly grandfather told me he was ready to go. The world was so different.
And no one here (I don’t think) has gone with more dignity and courage than David Simmons.
I note several folks are basically saying something along the lines of “you never know you may really fight it when the time comes”. Yes that is a valid observation. But on the flip side plenty of folks have never endured REAL pain and suffering either and to think you can just tough it out like some hero in a made for tv Lifetime movie channel movie may well be just wishful thinking. I had someone close to me die not so long ago. They fought it and the treatments weren’t that bad side effect wise and it added about 5 years of good quality life that they were able to make very good use of so in that case the fight was well worth it. And mercifully that bad parts were only towards the very end and the very bad parts only consisted of a couple of days.
I would fight. It’s my nature.
I have been beside my husband through his chemo and radiation for mantle cell lymphoma. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I would fight it, and go down kicking and screaming if I had to.
It would depend on whether there was a reasonable chance of “beating it”, whatever that means. I would want to know that after the pain and unpleasantness of surgery, chemo, etc, there was a reasonable chance of longer-term survival with a decent quality of life. If it were pancreatic cancer or melanoma, there is no way I would fight. But I had an uncle who was operated on for kidney cancer in 1963. They removed a kidney, but I don’t think he had chemo. Probably they didn’t have much 49 years ago. He was symptomless until 1986, when the biopsy of a shadow on his lung found in a routine chest x-ray turned to be kidney cancer. He died three years later. But in the meantime, he had a wonderful 23 years in which his sons got married, produced four granddaughters and he had a fine career as a biochemical researcher.
On the other side, my son’s SIL was discovered to have melanoma at the beginning of July, 2008 when she was in her fifth month of pregnancy. They held off treatment until early September when they induced the baby (who is now a healthy going-on-four year old) and started aggressive chemo. So the poor girl suffered enormously before dying at the beginning of December, a couple days after her 32nd birthday. Was it worth it? I would say not. Were there any realistic prospects that it could be worth it? My WAG is no.
Have any of you watched someone die that way? I mean, actually witnessed their final hours and minutes, struggling to breath, wracked with pain, digging their heels into the bed, back arched against the inevitable? I’m not judging you, I am just curious what your experience with death is.
Death doesn’t care how determined you are. Death doesn’t care about your nature. Death will be patient while you shake your fist. If you want to go out kicking and screaming, it is all the same to Death. You can’t prove anything to Death. Death will not remember your defiance. In the end, it is all the same to Death.
I’ve had metastatic cancer, so I think I know about being faced with the possibility of death. Doesn’t make it inevitable, though, and I am currently in my second year of remission.
I’m watching my brother in law die of cancer currently, and its tough. I had a friend die of breast cancer a few years ago, and I admired how she did it. And a sister, cousin and aunt who are breast cancer survivors. And my mother is a uterine cancer survivor.
I hope I’d go for a negotiated peace, not a fight. While there was either a decent quality of life or a decent chance of several years of survival, I’d fight. My mother’s hysterectomy was a piece of cake and easily tolerated. My sister’s radiation less so, but with her age and state in life (two little kids in the house), and her early diagnosis, it was worth a fight (and she’s clear). At some point though, the battle becomes completely uphill. Messy and muddy not just for you, but for the caregivers in your life. With very few moments of release. And at that point, a negotiated peace seems preferable to me than a continued battle.
ETA: I forgot about my friend - she fought for about two years, knowing at diagnosis that “I can hope for miracles, but I’d need one.” Two years of fighting gave her time to come to terms, as best as I think anyone can, with her own death. It let her spend time with the people she most enjoyed, see old friends. It gave her husband time to come to terms as well. And when the chemo wasn’t doing it anymore, they said, gracefully and with dignity, “its time.” And they accepted death on the terms it had been given them, grateful for the time and warning they had. It was, as much as it can be, a beautiful death.
There’s a limit to how much hell I’d be willing to go through here on earth just to delay the inevitable by another month, but short of that limit, wherever it is, I’d fight like hell. Every day I spend with my kid is precious. Even if I live to be 100, it’ll be done too soon.
If I were diagnosed with an advanced cancer I would probably have to choose to forgo treatment because I simply cannot afford it. If there was a way to be treated for free, then I would fight it. I could not choose to risk my family’s financial future to pay for medical care that could potentially grow into tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars. If I lived, I would probably be bankrupt. If I died, all we would have to pay for was a cremation. (The health insurance I have through my employer covers almost nothing.)
The idea of fighting a disease is actually something of a tyranny. What you actually do is consent to treatment - if you happen to be able to afford it.
If we say someone is a winner, then those who die from illness are losers - does this make them any less of a person, and does this make the ‘winner’ any more of a person? (apart from surviving).
It sort of places an obligation to do the ‘fighting’, and yet deciding not to take treatment is also a sensible option, this is not ‘giving up’ or losing this is making a balanced decision.
You don’t actually fight the disease in any meaningful conscious way, the anti-biotics do not work better because you are a ‘fighter’, nor does chemo, nor does radio-therapy.If you cut yourself accidently, the wound does not heal faster or better because you are a ‘fighter’.
This is not just a matter of semantics, we choose to make others suffer through ‘right to life’ campaigns - we place social and legal pressure on others to remain alive when it is clearly not a rational, or even humane decision.
Very good post there Casdave.