[quote=bearishgurl][quote=joec] . . . It’d be nice if government just comes out and start saying we have to ration health care like every other country. If you have cancer or some other terminal illness, well, that’s just too bad.
Of course, I’ll be upset when this happens to me, but health care costs are insane in this country and I’ll just live with it being my “time”….[/quote]
joec, I agree with this, as unpopular as it might sound. I believe Americans are very over-procedured and over-medicated when it comes to cancer. If you’re diagnosed at stage 4, there is no cure! It’s dicey for a Stage 3 cancer patient to ultimately survive it. After everything I’ve witnessed, if I should find myself with a stage 4 diagnosis, I will go out *sans treatment* quietly and gracefully. What’s the point? And why destroy the quality of my life in my final months and leave my heirs with all the bills and paperwork?[/quote]
Hmmm. I see what you’re saying, but having seen 3 family members be dx’d and die of cancer in the past few years I can add some perspective.
Even a person with a terminal dx may benefit from some chemo – and not all chemo is the same.
In 1999, my mom was dx’d with stage 3C ovarian cancer. By doing chemo she stayed alive long enough to see me get married and meet her first grandchild, my son. But her quality of life was bad at times – especially at the end. She died in 2002. Without chemo she likely would have died in 2000. Was it worth it… I’m not sure. But she felt it was.
My brother was dx’d in August 2007 with a very rare cancer – neuroendocrine carcinoma. This was his second malignancy. He’d previously had melanoma and beat it with surgical removal and skin grafts. His cancer was aggressive and terminal. In his case the chemo was suggested to *improve* his quality of life by reducing the tumors. Unfortunately it didn’t work and he did not respond well to chemo. We urged him to seek hospice, but he insisted on continued surgeries and spent his final month in the ICU of the hospital having emergency surgery after emergency surgery. He died in Dec 2007. I would NOT have made the same choices because his cancer was extremely aggresive and the life extending benefits of the cancer and surgery came at too high a cost, physically. But it’s hard for someone who’d in their 40’s to say “enough – I’m ready to die.”
My dad was dx’d with stage 3 multiple myeloma, also in August 2007. (In this particular cancer stage 3 is terminal.) BUT – the chemo was not the typical chemo – it was steroids and thalidomide (yes, the drug that was pulled from the market because of the birth defects.) In this case doing the chemo did not cause all the typical chemo side effects (hair loss, illness, loss of appetite). But it did offer a chance to extend his life by 2-3 years. Unfortunately, the steroids reduced his immune system – he got a cold that turned into septic pneumonia overnight – and died in Oct 2007.
In my mother’s case – I would make the same initial choice to do chemo and get a few more years. But would have done hospice at the end. In my dad’s case – I also would have done the thalidomide chemo because it didn’t make him sick and had less of a quality of life impact. In my brother’s case – I would not have pursued the chemo’s and surgery because the chemo made him so terribly ill (much sicker than my mother got) and the cancer continued to grow even with chemo. In other words the chemo had all negatives and no positives.
To say that once you have a terminal dx you should stop all treatment is pretty broad. If someone has AIDS should you not give them the drugs that keep it at bay and extend life? Can you tell a parent of young kids that they should not do whatever it takes to extend their time with their kids? Where does the line get drawn?
End of life choices are very personal. Having had to honor and discuss DNR choices with family members and medical personel, I’m not willing to say a government or insurance company should be the final arbitor.
