Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Yes but they caught Steve Jobs cancer so early, it had a 95% survival rate.
He had a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. They caught it early because his doctor insisted he get scans done for another condition (kidney, I think). The tumor was an "incidentaloma," what they call a serendipitous discovery.
Quote:
He dicked around with holistic cures until it was incurable.
No, OP came here and stated that they have cancer, don't want treatment, and their family doesn't understand. Nothing in that statement requires them to satisfy the curiosity of anyone here about every sordid detail of their illness, especially anyone who wants the details so they can continue to berate OP as their family is already doing.
It's not to berate anyone, it's to make sure that he understands that the experiences of five family members with various unnamed cancers, at whatever age, at whatever time in the past is irrelevant to his situation. It's to make sure he has the information from the nomogram above; it's about the situation with his first doctor who knows more about his disease than he does who he viciously attacks. It's about his refusal to even be counselled and his decision to abandon with a lie someone he claims to love dearly.
It's all about being open minded, informed and acting rationally.
It's about having a 92% opportunity to get this in his past and lead a long productive life.
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?
i work in health care and it is absolutely a person's right to decline treatment.
over the years i've spent a lot of time talking with family members to convey this.
there is dignity in choosing the treatment that you feel is best for you, and that includes declining treatment.
i would make the same choice myself, and have let my kids know this and have filled out the forms needed to ensure this.
best wishes to you and there is support for you by many who recognize and respect the choice you make.
No, OP came here and stated that they have cancer, don't want treatment, and their family doesn't understand. Nothing in that statement requires them to satisfy the curiosity of anyone here about every sordid detail of their illness, especially anyone who wants the details so they can continue to berate OP as their family is already doing.
That is like saying someone came on here going to commit suicide, and wondering how to relay this to the family, so all of us posters should just ignore that little part and answer the question, lol.
Sorry, the rational response from any human is going to be addressing the core issue like this.
Most of the attitudes here are precisely the ones OP is getting from their family, and does not want. People are so adamant that if they don't agree with the decision someone else makes for their own life (or even death), they have to try to change the person's mind-- even if they don't, and never will, know that person and have absolutely no horses anywhere near the race. It's too bad people can't accept each other's decisions and personal life choices more.
Sorry, the OP is making an utterly stupid decision, and there’s no other way to put it. It’s a stage 2 cancer and the dude is 30 years old. (I’m assuming it’s a he, but it doesn’t matter any which way). His thinking is completely fallacious, and not based on the reality of his circumstances. He is incorrectly and inappropriately abstracting the experiences of others who have had totally different cancers and were different people and different ages. 30 is too young to give up. I suspect he is depressed with a horrible self-image and this mental state probably pre-dated his cancer by many years. He is treating his cancer as confirmation of his lack of self-worth and using it as a proxy for the suicide he would like to have been strong enough to commit. If he was 60, this would be a different conversation, but at 30 there is no rational scenario where you refuse treatment for a stage 2 kidney cancer. The problem is mental health here, not the cancer.
James - get your butt into some counseling. You need help. It’s not opinion, it’s fact. You are not thinking straight. I fully share your view on assisted suicide and it should be universally available when appropriate. For you, it is not appropriate.
I would really like if you could explain since I did that with my best intentions. I really wanted to protect her from all the gloom that's heading my way.
You are protecting yourself from having to deal with her emotions, you are not protecting her. She will still feel all the emotions but you won't be around to see it or comfort her any.
i work in health care and it is absolutely a person's right to decline treatment.
over the years i've spent a lot of time talking with family members to convey this.
there is dignity in choosing the treatment that you feel is best for you, and that includes declining treatment.
i would make the same choice myself, and have let my kids know this and have filled out the forms needed to ensure this.
best wishes to you and there is support for you by many who recognize and respect the choice you make.
As a medical professional yourself, I'm curious as to why you would decline cancer treatment. I agree with you & the OP & also would not subject myself to treatment. But you have a unique perspective, a view from the inside, & I'd be interested in hearing more of your thoughts on this topic.
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.
Your body, your choice. No one else's, no matter how much they love you.
I think, as all of us age or start to face medical issues, we accept the inevitable. The pain, the endless medical procedures, etc really take their toll on you, to the point where passing would be less painful.
As a person who had multiple tumors and borderline stage 2, mildly aggressive cancer 2 years ago at the age of 40, I’m just baffled at how you have come to the conclusion that you are going to go through endless suffering and then end up dying soon after anyway. You were right to leave your first doctor, but not because they wouldn’t accept your refusal of treatment, because they did such a bad job of explaining the treatment to you that you’re actively choosing death instead.
I had seen two family members die from cancer too, but their circumstances were different. Both were diagnosed at stage 4 and in both cases it was clear from the moment they were diagnosed that it would be terminal. One was so far gone that they didn’t even try to treat her but she was in her late 80s. My brother, who was in his 30s, was able to gain some extra time with treatment but it was always known that he was not going to make it. Neither of those experiences made me think that I was not going to make it through my own treatment.
Yes I had 3 surgeries in the space of 3 months. One was over 12 hours long. I spent around 3 weeks unable to stand up straight. The surgery I chose meant that I did not need radiation or chemo. Most of my friends and neighbors don’t actually know I even had cancer because the effect on my life was so minimal. 6 months after my diagnosis I was flying around the country on vacation with my kids and enjoying life. It’s like it never happened.
Your family are struggling because there just isn’t any logic to your decision. We all know what it’s like to live with what ifs, and you are leaving your family and former girlfriend with 50 years of what ifs. And what ifs of the worst kind because in your situation, you clearly have an amazing chance of beating this and you’re just digging your heels in and refusing to even try.
I have no doubt that they will be there for you at the end, providing the support you need. But they are not obligated to accept or support your decision, just as you are not obligated to accept treatment. If you are entitled to have free will in this, so are they.
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.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
