NY TImes article about cancer treatment

15 years 7 months ago #20543 by mznoregrets
Replied by mznoregrets on topic NY TImes article about cancer treatment
Hi Tim,

Thank you for the thoughts generated from your candid post :) I pondered how I lived before cancer and how it has changed me.

My friends say my grave marker will say "She lived it to the bone" - referring to the deliberate way I lived. Before cancer it was obvious I wanted to live...I took great risks by mosts standards. I have been self-employed atleast half of my life. I found courage to love again after bitter divorces. I was not afraid to really live - it was evident as I rarely passed an opportunity to do just that.

With great risks comes the possibility of great loss thus pain. It is vital to understand my definitions on suffering and pain...pain is nessesary while suffering is not. Pain is a natural product of growth or loss, suffering is what happens when we linger in pain too long. Maybe I have oversimplified this aspect of living, but it has helped me get back to living quicker after a fall while also minimizing my regrets. I have accepted the occaisional pain as a small price to pay for truly living.

The "fearing the unknown" is like the rubber meeting the road for me. As I said, I have taken great risks which always magnified jumping into the great unknown. And this is where my faith comes in. (Forgive if I offend by delving into the heart of my faith, I normally am not one to preach) This life is not the whole enchilada to me - the eternal is where my focus has been. I am to do my best on this earth knowing I have a place in Heaven. What I do here and who I am becoming matter more than what happens to me as it is the means to an end - Heaven...So my "unknown" is reduced to how this part of my life concludes. I'd be lying if I said that doesn't frighten me.

Up to the point in my life when this cancer hit, I was 100% sure I was living, not suffering and not afraid as I was and am sure of the eternal. The only abyss is the unpredictable direction of the cancer. With no clear method known to beat it the choices in dealing with it are murky. This is what the article addresses.

Maybe we face the cancer in the fashion we are living, or by the way we are dying. In the end stages of cancer there are no surefire cures. Some grasp desperately for any hope to continue life regaurdless of the suffering the treatment produces. Some refuse to abandon life as they know it thus refusing anymore treatment accepting the known outcome. Others carefully draw a line in the sand where the quality of life lies. This is living and dying with mets, and what I saw as the crux of the article.

So I am grateful for life as I know it, knew it. Being one who has more than once been called a "deep thinker" - I felt reassured as I pondered how fearlessly I believe I have lived and how little I choose to suffer. I am cognizant of where my lines in the sand are, too.

God Bless, Holly

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15 years 7 months ago - 15 years 7 months ago #20535 by timb
Replied by timb on topic NY TImes article about cancer treatment
"We want to live, we don't want to suffer and we fear the unknown". Holly, that sounds pretty much like a blueprint for the human condition! In a way that's quite profound. I think everyone with or without cancer experience is guided by these things. I don't think we're so different in these respects to people without cancer; just a lot more sensitive and knowing of these fundamental issues because of our proximity to them. With cancer I personally felt the coping strategies i had developed around these issues were no longer usable, the abyss was right in front of me and i had to develop different ones. that immediately cut me off from other people around me. or something like that! I'll have a look at the article and shut up!

T

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15 years 7 months ago #20506 by mznoregrets
Replied by mznoregrets on topic NY TImes article about cancer treatment
Hi Ann,

I was able to view the article :) And I think it is an important one for those of us here. Having incurable cancer brings emotions from all over the map... We want to live, we don't want to suffer and we fear the unknown. Our spouses and family go through that also. Most of us have to overcome many obstacles just to get open dialogue let alone help each other through it. The medical community definately needs to be honest about the trade offs when looking at quality of life and survival. So do our family members and friends who almost push us into treatments which damage quality of life significantly. Thank you for sharing this article, God Bless, Holly

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15 years 7 months ago #20504 by pemquid
www.nytimes.com/2008/08/19/health/19brod.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin

"In Cancer Therapy, There Is a Time to Treat and a Time to Let Go"
By JANE E. BRODY
Published: August 18, 2008

Although I myself am not facing any treatment decisions of the type reported here, I thought this article might be of interest for some of you. I hope this link will open up without you having to sign up for the NY Times online (which is free).

I well remember when my Dad had lung cancer, for which he was fairly successfully treated with chemotherapy and had a good year, with good quality of life, following the treatment. However, it had metastasized to his liver, and after just a couple of new rounds of chemo they stopped and told him he wasn't strong enough for more "right now" (which I think was not true, but was a way of stopping without having him give up hope). Ironically, he'd had bladder cancer over 10 years earlier, with just one recurrence, and was down to bladder check-ups once a year when he died of the lung cancer (age 84). I'm sure his many years of smoking was a major contributor to both the bladder and the lung cancer (though for what it's worth I never smoked and have bladder cancer).

Ann

Small TA Grade 1, May-06; recur (2 tiny), same, June-08; TURBTs both times. BCG begun July-08, dosage to 1/3rd May-10, completed treatment December-11. All clear since 2008.

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