Over last winter two of my family members both got sick. One was an aunt who was pretty close to me and my siblings. She was my mother's sister and she had really stepped up when my parents died. But, her husband is another story. All summer long as she got sicker and sicker he refused to give up. He kept saying she needed to fight even long after it was clear there was noting chemo could do for her. She said she wanted to quit and live out what time she had left in peace but she kept giving in to his insistence that she fight. Finally the oncologist refused to treat her anymore. He, the husband, refused to put her in a hospice, and so she went three days with no pain meds and no liquids because she could not swallow. It killed me to see how his refusal to accept that he was losing her both caused her great pain and actually hastened her death at the end. She was a fabulous woman and I am heartbroken over both her loss and the way she died.
At almost the same time another family member was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer. Small cell lung cancer is the worst. The cure rate is non-existent and the relapse rate is high. In most cases the treatment is chemo until it stops having any effect and then hospice. Again, we went through this mess of people saying I was quitting too soon. After his first round of chemo the docs said it was really too late. The cancer was already in his lungs, esophagous, and liver. He was too old and too weak to withstand the level of chemo needed. They told the family that if he went through chemo again it had a 10% chance of extending his life, a 10% chance of doing nothing but making him ill, and an 80% chance that the chemo itself would kill him. Guess what his daughters decided to do? They gave him chemo and he died 48 hours later. There was no way that kind of cancer was going to be cured. The best thing for him was to be made comfortable and given the chance to make his peace. They refused.
In both cases I kept saying that the choice should be the patients. I begged the family to recognize that they needed to put the patient's needs above their own pain. In both cases they could not do that. They both died badly. I have been present at the deaths of far too many people, but do know that death can be a wonderful peaceful transition for both the person leaving and those left behind. Aunt died in September and great uncle in early Oct. I still can't talk to any of the people involved in their deaths because I am so angry with them.
Both groups are angry with me and have called me hateful things because I was a quitter. There come a point when modern medicine is not a miracle it can be its own kind of torture. Great uncle's family was told the truth but one doctor told them they should do the chemo because they would never be able to live with themselves if they hadn't given him that chance. A 10% chance vs 80% that it will,actually kill you what kind of chance is that? And that 10% chance was only expected to gain him a few months, not really cure him.
So that is where I have been. I am sorry for those that I bailed on here, I didn't mean to drop you all like old news.
At almost the same time another family member was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer. Small cell lung cancer is the worst. The cure rate is non-existent and the relapse rate is high. In most cases the treatment is chemo until it stops having any effect and then hospice. Again, we went through this mess of people saying I was quitting too soon. After his first round of chemo the docs said it was really too late. The cancer was already in his lungs, esophagous, and liver. He was too old and too weak to withstand the level of chemo needed. They told the family that if he went through chemo again it had a 10% chance of extending his life, a 10% chance of doing nothing but making him ill, and an 80% chance that the chemo itself would kill him. Guess what his daughters decided to do? They gave him chemo and he died 48 hours later. There was no way that kind of cancer was going to be cured. The best thing for him was to be made comfortable and given the chance to make his peace. They refused.
In both cases I kept saying that the choice should be the patients. I begged the family to recognize that they needed to put the patient's needs above their own pain. In both cases they could not do that. They both died badly. I have been present at the deaths of far too many people, but do know that death can be a wonderful peaceful transition for both the person leaving and those left behind. Aunt died in September and great uncle in early Oct. I still can't talk to any of the people involved in their deaths because I am so angry with them.
Both groups are angry with me and have called me hateful things because I was a quitter. There come a point when modern medicine is not a miracle it can be its own kind of torture. Great uncle's family was told the truth but one doctor told them they should do the chemo because they would never be able to live with themselves if they hadn't given him that chance. A 10% chance vs 80% that it will,actually kill you what kind of chance is that? And that 10% chance was only expected to gain him a few months, not really cure him.
So that is where I have been. I am sorry for those that I bailed on here, I didn't mean to drop you all like old news.
