Should we ‘fight’ Cancer ? Notwithstanding my posts on Too Hot, I regard cancer (whatever it is) as very real. I lost my dad to it (or with it) when I was ten. My baby sister was diagnosed with leukemia, endured hellish procedures, but is still with us. And only recently I lost a young friend to it (or with it). *thoughts on to it/with it later. Would it help to wear F#@k Cancer t-shirts ? Another perspective … “We hear it all the time: Cancer is a battle, and patients have to fight in order to increase their chances of a good outcome. It’s a common message used in the media, the premise being that a person's cancer can be eradicated if they're tough enough. But does this put the burden of healing on patients by turning them into winners and losers? Does it saddle those who aren't doing well with the added guilt of not having fought hard enough? And how much does a person's attitude really matter in the grand scheme of their cancer treatment?” Cancer Mythbusters: The Myth That Cancer Is a 'Battle' | Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
The other day I was at a Dermatologist office, she was freezing off skin cancer spots. She checked all over my body, arms, legs, back, neck ect. When she was about through she asked if I would like her to look at my buttocks. My answer "Can I look at yours?"
Funny, but I think I can top that. I had a dermatologist named Slaughter. I had a tiny black spec on my right eyelid which he diagnosed as a basal cell carcinoma and urged me to have it removed without delay. So, a ‘pioneering’ new type of surgery produced a scar many times larger than the cancer. Shortly thereafter a similar tiny spec appeared on my left eyelid (I’ve always been a stickler for symmetry) but I decided to leave it alone. That was eight years ago.
Cancer sucks Not everyone who “fights” wins. Not everyone with courage gets the reward. It’s not fair. Not fair to the patient nor the loved ones that suffered through with him/her. But no, imo, the message isn’t that a person can beat cancer by battling hard enough. No cancer patient I knew while going through my own battles had that mind set. The message is those that fight gave a chance… those that don’t… usually don’t.
What a puzzling response as it is bleeding obvious that I am not standing in anybody’s way but am only offering other perspectives.
I lost a very dear friend in October of last year. She was fine in June the last time I saw her. When her colon cancer was found, it was already stage 4 and had spread rapidly to multiple organs. She was diagnosed in late August, the extent to which it had spread was known by early September, and she was in Hospice by late September and passed away November 5th. No treatment was possible by the time it was found. So while she did not reject treatment, the only treatment she was able to have was palliative care that did little more than make her last month of life merely somewhat tolerable. Surgery, Chemo, Radiation, and Biologics were not options for her. She was one of the strongest women I knew and left an impact on multiple continents, and left 3 children behind- college age and younger. If anyone could have "fought" cancer off, it would have been her, but that was not God's plan for her.
Sorry for your loss. Yes, I to have had those experiences where death occurs shortly after diagnosis. Out of curiosity, what would ‘fought off’ had entailed ?
Steve Jobs ‘fought’ cancer too. He jumped all over it, albeit with alternative strategies. But to the notion that had not delayed conventional treatments, the NIH adds these sobering notes … Many journalists mentioned and even focused on Jobs’ initial decision to forego conventional treatments and instead use complementary and alternative medical (CAM) therapies, including acupuncture, botanicals, and dietary changes (Grady, 2011). This was chronicled in his biography and corroborated via interviews with his friends and colleagues (Isaacson, 2011). However, what many journalists failed to note is that the evidence supporting any specific conventional treatment approach (surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy) for GEP-NETs comprises a slim literature, and the evidence base for use of CAM therapeutic approaches for GEP-NETs is virtually non-existent. After a delay of nine months after diagnosis, in 2004, Jobs opted for surgery. He died 7 years later. What can we learn from Steve Jobs about complementary and alternative therapies? - PMC
