henshaw111

henshaw111 t1_ixvaazm wrote

‘Not the same’ is exactly the point, which is why cynicism isn’t helpful. In the earlier days of chemotherapy it was pretty much the case if the cancer didn’t get you, the chemo did - and the side effects were pretty unpleasant. Palliative care has inevitably improved over the decades. With a lot of cancers, people eventually run out of road and the last several months or more can be pretty shitty. At the moment I’ve a couple of friends, one with stage 3 bowel cancer, another with prostate cancer. Both have metastasised, they’re into the realm of whack-a-mole, hope, and not heading out of the door just yet.

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henshaw111 t1_ixv4kpj wrote

Aside from getting valuable time with their families, doom and gloom aside, anyone with cancer - or any life limiting condition, I suspect - there is always hope that there’s something ‘just around the corner’. A few people I know have benefitted from treatment that was in its early days and not widely available, IIRC, and treatment nowadays appears to be far less brutal than in the days of chemotherapy in the 70s, 80s and earlier when my father (brain tumour, actually), one of his brothers, and probably the majority of the rest of his siblings and several family friends were diagnosed with cancers of various sorts.

Folks can always refuse treatment, and some do.

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