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Declining treatment is a perfectly valid choice. It is shameful of any doctor who drops a patient over it. If a patient puts a limit on the treatment they will accept, the doctors take it personally, or something.
One might decide they will accept surgery and radiation but not chemo. That is not good enough because medicine decides the poison is part of the standard recommended treatment plan and who are you as patient to choose something else for yourself. So why bother.
Has anyone ever dealt with a similar situation in their family?
Nope.
I wasn't fool enough to refuse treatment for cancer 8 years ago. Got lots of chemo and some radiation.
Your cancer has a higher cure rate than mine, too.
You don't know what you're in for... this is not a good way to commit suicide.
I'd go for pills or a gun, they're faster and less painful.
If my cancer comes back, I'll go through the whole treatment again.
If it doesn't work, see paragraph #2 above. Offing oneself is the final option, not the first one.
Declining treatment is a perfectly valid choice. It is shameful of any doctor who drops a patient over it. If a patient puts a limit on the treatment they will accept, the doctors take it personally, or something.
One might decide they will accept surgery and radiation but not chemo. That is not good enough because medicine decides the poison is part of the standard recommended treatment plan and who are you as patient to choose something else for yourself. So why bother.
If I were a doctor, I would drop such a patient. I'd have enough problems treating patients who actually want to live. If I am not going to receive this most basic form of cooperation, then we have different goals, and mine are antithetical to his. You don't need a medical doctor if you don't want to live. Doctors are in the life business...
If I were a doctor, I would drop such a patient. I'd have enough problems treating patients who actually want to live. If I am not going to receive this most basic form of cooperation, then we have different goals, and mine are antithetical to his. You don't need a medical doctor if you don't want to live. Doctors are in the life business...
Ever hear of palliative care?
Some of the posters who work in health care have said they would decline treatment, that is saying something.
It is not that infrequent that people die from the treatment itself, medical errors, hospital pathogens when their immune system is killed off.
When medicine can cure or treat cancer without slicing and dicing people up, burning them with radiation, poisoning and attacking their entire immune system, then we have a win. Until then we are in barbaric territory. We should be ashamed we haven't been able to move beyond these approaches when we have such fast progress with technology and have almost cured HIV.
OP, let's, for a moment, say that you don't have stage 2 kidney cancer, but instead have a badly infected wound on your non-dominant hand. Maybe it's even got that flesh eating stuff, and they want to either remove a non vital body part, your left hand, and give you a bunch of antibiotics that make you feel like crap for a couple months. Would you refuse treatment and choose to die of sepsis as the infection spreads through your body? Would you expect your family to accept your choice of death over treatment? That's basically what you're doing. You have a fairly treatable, frequently curable disease and you say you'd rather die than accept treatment that has a better than fair chance of saving the next 50 years of your life. You seem to think your life has no value when it's really just beginning. There is so much more for you to do and experience and you have decent odds of surviving the treatment, and going on to fulfill your life's goals and have a long happy life.
If you were 83 and it was stage 4 lung or pancreatic cancer, I'd be right there with you. Why put yourself through agony and prolong the inevitable? Right? But you're not old and weak, you're not incurable, you're not even at an advanced stage. Treatment at this point won't be the horrible ordeal you think, and dying from this is FAR from certain, unless of course you refuse treatment. If you continue to refuse treatment then your odds are 100% fatal, but it will be a long and painful death. You've got much better than 50 percent odds of being cured and going on to live a wonderful life. With treatment you could die "of old age" at 94.
You definitely need to seek counseling for your low sense of self-worth, and if I were your sister I would urge you to speak to a counselor well versed in handling cases of medical issues and the depression they cause. You are suffering from a depression that is far more dangerous, at this point, than your cancer. As a family member or girlfriend, I would have a very hard time accepting that you are refusing to save your own life. You are not in the deep end yet, but the tide will only rise if you don't start swimming buddy. Save your own life while you can. The longer you wait to do the surgery, the worse your chances become. Time is of the essence.
Having had 5 close family members who died from cancer after going through treatments, I believe the burdens and pain of the treatment far outweight the benefits. I'll not put myself through the rollescoaster of building expectations and having them crushed all the time. I'll not go through the uncertain and the unexpected. I prefer certainty.
I also do not believe life is somewhat precious. Mine certainly isn't. We interfere too much with our own health. The amount of suffering people go through because "life must be kept at all costs" is beyong insanity.
Mind you, not going ahead with treatment also means suffering. But at least in this case you know what's expecting you. And that somewhat gives you a certain comfort.
Well, as someone who agrees with you, I wish you the best. I too would refuse treatment. I care not for this life, have been abused by the very family that supposedly loves me and would rather cut them off from my life and hope to one day.
Some of the posters who work in health care have said they would decline treatment, that is saying something.
It is not that infrequent that people die from the treatment itself, medical errors, hospital pathogens when their immune system is killed off.
When medicine can cure or treat cancer without slicing and dicing people up, burning them with radiation, poisoning and attacking their entire immune system, then we have a win. Until then we are in barbaric territory. We should be ashamed we haven't been able to move beyond these approaches when we have such fast progress with technology and have almost cured HIV.
Not interested in “when reality is no longer what it is”. You live one life. There is no other. There is no afterlife. You were born when medical technology is what it is, and there is no choice at any other. So you make the best of it.
Palliative care is for 80 year olds or stage 4.9 hospice. Not for a 30 year old with a mental illness that obscures his comprehension of reality, and causes him to choose death over life. If I’m a doctor, I’m not giving this patient palliative care. It is a violation of the Hippocratic Oath (Do no harm). Palliative care given to someone with a mental condition who is utilizing his disease as a means of suicide is doing great harm.
I'm really hoping now that this is a troll post :/
It's a shame that you feel that your life, before the cancer diagnosis, isn't good enough for you so that you've decided to just "shut it down." It's one thing to take that stance as someone who faces a terminal outcome. But there's still plenty of hope for you. You fail to realize that many cancer patients who are stage 3/4 would rather be where you are right now. For many, they didn't have the time to act until the cancer was far enough along.
Everything is not sunshine and roses in my world, but I have so much to live for, and people who love me and would want to see me around. For those reasons, I will fight if faced with even insurmountable (which yours isn't) odds, because I have so many reasons to live.
And yes, I'll go there, deciding to end it all when you don't have to is selfish. That's no different than putting a pistol to your head. The people who are left behind will have to deal with your early loss and the hole that it will cause.
I'm all for a patient's right to die and euthanasia. But that is really for people who really have little concrete hope, where there's little ROI other than patient suffering. I wouldn't euthanize my dog unless it was suffering, so why would I do that to myself?
I have been diagnosed with kidney cancer and my family does not accept that I'm refusing treatment. I can perfectly understand trying to change to my mind at first, since it's a shock and I would surely do the same in their place.
However, it comes to a point when you have to accept the decision. My mother and my brothers keep coming at me to try to change my mind at every opportunity. I've tried to explain that as if this isn't hard enough already, they are just making it harder. Instead of counting on their support, I'm usually angry at them.
Has anyone ever dealt with a similar situation in their family?
While whatever you decide is up to you why not research various options for treatment. Kidney cancer if not spread outside the kidney is probably very treatable. This doesn't mean you have to undergo chemo. There is treatment being done for prostate cancer as well as other cancers called proton therapy that you might be able to undergo. Talk further with your doctors about options and once you have all the information then make your decision. Don't be too rash on immediately not wanting treatment. Your family loves you and doesn't want to lose you, especially if the cancer is very treatable.
Further thoughts because this has really got to me.
Stage 2 and it’s only mildly aggressive - this is going to be a slow and painful process to get to the point where it actually kills you. Possibly years.
You’re quitting your job but that presumably also means quitting your insurance. Unless you plan to just soldier on without any pain meds or hospice care, that’s going to get expensive. You probably want to rethink that.
So you’re getting all the pain, all the stress, and definitely dying at the end. Its probably quite safe to assume that getting treatment will probably be way less painful and stressful than actually dying from untreated cancer will be when you’re starting out at only stage 2 and it’s only mildly aggressive. It just doesn’t make sense to go through more pain and more suffering to definitely die than it would to go through way less pain and suffering and very likely live. Like very likely. It’s not even in your lymph nodes! I just don’t think you’ve really thought about the true ramifications of your choice.
Ya know, after reading this post, I have rethought what I originally posted. This post reminded me of a man who I worked with a couple of years ago. He had stage 4 Cancer, not sure where, but it was not good, they were ready to write him off. He did the Chemo routine, and today he is 100% free of it, and living a totally normal life. I asked him how bad the side effects were during the Chemo, and he said " A lot easier than dying !"
So, maybe you do need to rethink your decision, you really have nothing to lose.
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