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Life as a cancer patient: ‘it feels like dying from the drugs meant to save me’

theguardian.com

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Re: Life as a cancer patient: ‘it feels like dying from the drugs meant to save me’

#41

Post by jcims »

bmurphy1976 wrote: post #39
jcims wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to help my wife through chemo now, and the staying hydrated and eating something is kicking our butts. Her oncologist believes that her nausea is due to directly to disease progression and it's relentless. We're now on a regimen of phenergen every 6 hours but that just prevents cyclic nausea from occurring AND it knocks her out to where she's sleeping at least 20 hrs a day. Then when she wakes up she can only…

Serious question: have you tried marijuana? I always figured if I ever ended up in this kind of situation that would be the first thing I would try to help me eat.

Yep. We just got her a medical card. She’s pretty old school, thinks its all bullshit, tried it once and said it gave her a headache and I haven’t been able to get her to try it again. :/

Re: Life as a cancer patient: ‘it feels like dying from the drugs meant to save me’

#42

Post by cgriswald »

huherto wrote: post #21
md224 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems so counterintuitive to choose to inflict this kind of damage to oneself, in the hopes that it will prevent an even worse outcome. Especially since the "worse outcome" -- your own non-existence -- is the one thing in the Universe you are guaranteed to never experience (though your loved ones can experience your non-existence, and that can be a good reason to try to avoid it).

> your own non-existence - Why is it so hard to accept this? Why is it so scary?

I’m pretty accepting of it, and in a weird way kind of looking forward to either “sleeping forever” or finding out I’m wrong about what happens. Still, in certain moments thinking about it, I feel fear. I think it’s instinctual.

That said, I think I fear the moments before death more than death. I went to the hospital recently for chest pain. Heart issues run in my family. Both grandfathers and all but one of my uncles (on both sides) had heart attacks before they were my current age. I do keep myself generally healthier than they ever did, but of course a huge chunk of it is genetic. I didn’t feel I was having a heart attack, but I didn’t know. (I wasn’t, I found out later.) I felt a significant level of fear.

My fear wasn’t really focused on death, but on never leaving the hospital; on the last time I did things being the last time; on being trapped, in a sense, prevented from doing the things I still wanted to do; and leaving my girlfriend and daughter to deal with either a protracted illness or my absence.

Death itself wasn’t really a worry. I think I kind of grok that things won’t be my problem anymore then and I’m cool with it. On the other hand, maybe that’s just delusion. I’ll be third in line when they start handing out immortality shots. (Trying to split the difference between flawed implementations and over-regulation.) I think it’s just because I like to live, but maybe I’m just afraid not to.

Re: Life as a cancer patient: ‘it feels like dying from the drugs meant to save me’

#43

Post by robotresearcher »

seibelj wrote: post #33
robotresearcher wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bah, she can be grateful for the system later if and when she survives, her fingernails have grown back and she can button up her own shirt. Meanwhile, I found the insight into her situation educational and heartrending. If you step on a lego piece, do you immediately yell 'what a valuable and well-crafted toy product', or 'fuck that hurts'?

The details of what it’s like to live with that disease are insightful. I have a more raw understanding of what that is like now. But intertwined with the article is a critique of every single bit of the system, and larger society, that is fantastically successful at keeping an ever increasing number of such patients alive. The author critiques the economic system, the hospitals, the doctors, the genders of the care…

You've explained clearly that you would be a more grateful, appreciative suffering aggressive cancer patient than the author, whose choices doomed her to suffer alone.

Re: Life as a cancer patient: ‘it feels like dying from the drugs meant to save me’

#44

Post by markbnj »

seibelj wrote: post #33
robotresearcher wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bah, she can be grateful for the system later if and when she survives, her fingernails have grown back and she can button up her own shirt. Meanwhile, I found the insight into her situation educational and heartrending. If you step on a lego piece, do you immediately yell 'what a valuable and well-crafted toy product', or 'fuck that hurts'?

The details of what it’s like to live with that disease are insightful. I have a more raw understanding of what that is like now. But intertwined with the article is a critique of every single bit of the system, and larger society, that is fantastically successful at keeping an ever increasing number of such patients alive. The author critiques the economic system, the hospitals, the doctors, the genders of the care…

Did you read this part?

> In the capitalist medical universe in which all bodies must orbit around profit at all times, even a double mastectomy is considered an outpatient procedure. After my mastectomy, the eviction from the recovery ward came aggressively and early. The nurse woke me up from anaesthesia and attempted to incorrectly fill out all the questions on the exit questionnaire for me while I failed in an attempt to argue with her that I was not OK. I told her that my pain was not managed, that I had not yet actually gone to the bathroom, that I had not yet been given instructions, that I could not stand, let alone leave. Then they made me leave, and I left.

Re: Life as a cancer patient: ‘it feels like dying from the drugs meant to save me’

#45

Post by stordoff »

cosmic_shame wrote: post #10

In pharmacy school I was told the paradigm in infections diseases was to identify the amount of medication to kill the pathogen, then give a little more. In oncology, it's to identify the amount of medication that would kill the patient, then give a little less.

I've heard it put similarly bluntly - you hope the chemo kills the cancer before it kills you. I know a few people who are actively undergoing chemotherapy, and my grandfather died of pancreatic cancer (metastasised to liver IIRC), and it's quite clear the heavy tole it takes on them.

Re: Life as a cancer patient: ‘it feels like dying from the drugs meant to save me’

#46

Post by stordoff »

algaeontoast wrote: post #13

If I ever have a cancer diagnosis that would require extreme treatment or a pro-longed period of suffering, i.e. stage 3 or 4, I'd seriously consider shooting myself rather enduring months if not years of agony. In theory I'd have insurance, however why put my family through years of seeing me suffer and become a person they might not recognize?

Perhaps not a decision you can truly consider until you get there. I've always been quite open to the idea of euthanasia in principle, but now that I live with a degree of chronic pain, I find myself becoming _vehemently_ anti-suicide - I'm not going to let this beat me - and the worse the pain is, the more intense that feeling becomes.

I'm quite aware there is probably a level of pain that may start my thinking in the opposition direction though, and no doubt different people will have different thoughts on and approaches to this.

Re: Life as a cancer patient: ‘it feels like dying from the drugs meant to save me’

#47

Post by anon1m0us »

I knew two people who both got cancer about the same time. One said no to chemo. The other said yes to chemo.

The differences in quality of life until death were dramatic. Neither had a longer life than was expected had they not taken the chemo, but the one who did lost hair, physical dexterity, then life. Suffered greatly.

The other one suffered much less, but still died.

The doctors all said take the drugs. You don't have to take the drugs. Do the research. Chemo isn't always beneficial.

Sometimes... it's just hope.

Re: Life as a cancer patient: ‘it feels like dying from the drugs meant to save me’

#49

Post by anon91831837 »

geofffox wrote: post #29

I am a pancreatic cancer survivor. It is considered incurable in 2019 and I'm here because of a 1930s era surgery called a Whipple procedure. Around 9% survive five years or more -- a number that hasn't really changed. In a belt plus suspenders move I underwent 2 rounds (six infusions per round) of chemo plus 28 consecutive weekdays of radiation after surgery. All my doctors are amazed at my recovery, a few saying th…

A friend of mine had a Whipple procedure but it ruined his quality of life (he couldn't eat almost anything) and he died not long after. He wasn't even into his mid-40's, CMU alumnus and worked on XEmacs.

Re: Life as a cancer patient: ‘it feels like dying from the drugs meant to save me’

#50

Post by seibelj »

robotresearcher wrote: post #43
seibelj wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The details of what it’s like to live with that disease are insightful. I have a more raw understanding of what that is like now. But intertwined with the article is a critique of every single bit of the system, and larger society, that is fantastically successful at keeping an ever increasing number of such patients alive. The author critiques the economic system, the hospitals, the doctors, the genders of the care…

You've explained clearly that you would be a more grateful, appreciative suffering aggressive cancer patient than the author, whose choices doomed her to suffer alone.

HN comment section serves to allow us to debate and discuss the linked articles. The author explicitly chose to make her editorial not only about her situation but a larger critique of society, throwing bombs at everything. I’m not going to give her a pass because she has cancer as I vehemently disagree with her.
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