[quote=UCGal]Just for the record… different cancers have different stages… Patb’s mom had stage 5. My dad’s blood cancer had 3 stages (with stage 3 being terminal.) My brother and mom’s cancer’s had 4 stages.
Davelj – that’s interesting (and sad) about your mom. Both my dad and my brother had 2 unrelated malignancies… It’s considered very unusual. My brother beat melanoma (after removal of the cancer and lymph node) only to get a completely unrelated cancer. My dad beat prostate cancer after surgery and radiation – only to get a multiple myeloma – an unrelated blood cancer. In both cases the doctors expressed surpise that the cancer was unrelated – but determined they were 2nd malignancies.
My family is my own personal cancer cluster… 5 malignancies in 3 people out of a family of 5. Who needs an area in Carlsbad.[/quote]
My condolences to you and all the other posters who’ve had to deal with a loved one having cancer. It sucks more than anything I can imagine.
Right now, one of my best friends is dealing with the death of her sister from cancer (this past weekend), and another friend is watching his mom die from lung cancer as I type. Another friend’s brother is also dying from lung cancer right now. All had lots of chemo, and it didn’t work/isn’t working for any one of them. I get depressed from hearing all these stories.
Anyway, just wanted to add that my parents had five cancers between them, too, UCGal, so I know what you must be going through with this. Dad had melanoma, leukemia, and prostate cancer — totally unrelated, apparently. Mom had breast and uterine cancer (might have been related, they weren’t sure).
My dad lived for 25 years as a result of (expensive) chemo. His cancer was incurable, so they would just put him through a new treatment regimen every few years. My mom refused to have chemo or radiation, but had surgery and opted for Tamoxifen treatment (very mild, just a pill, no real side effects).
The wisest thing my mother said when she was diagnosed at age 65 was:
“They’re not going to give me ten years of my twenties or thirties, they can only give me ten years of my seventies or eighties, when everything else is falling apart. If I were younger, or raising minor children, it would be different, but it’s not worth all the pain and suffering to *maybe* get a few more years as a senior citizen.”
It made sense, actually. She still lived about nine years without the chemo or radiation. I often wonder if these treatments are really prolonging life, or if people might live just as long without it. Either way, people should seriously consider the trade-off between quality of life and quantity of life, depending on the cancer and age at diagnosis.
My greatest wish is that they finally find a real cure (better yet — prevention) for cancer.
