Wow can your condition go south that quickly?
you hear these types of stories more often than of ones where people die of cancer not knowing they had cancer
This was the often praised UK NHS btw
I guess the Dutch system is not so bad after all. Or maybe you've got bad luck in that doctor, and I'm fortunate to have a good one. There's always some bad apples in every group.
His cancer had been in remission, but unfortunately it evolved into a much more aggressive form of plasma cell leukemia. He passed away within that week.
It's shockingly common, too. A close family friend saw progress from an experimental treatment against stage 4 pancreatic cancer (she basically stole some eighteen months of her life back; this cancer at this stage is notorious for being a quick and agonizing death sentence), but despite success in shrinking the metastasized tumor population down to just one, she had the misfortune of her cancer mutating such that the treatment was no longer effective.
She was felled two weeks after that discovery.
I'm so, so dreadfully sorry for your loss.
It is perhaps not so well understood that a cancer is not 'part of the person'. Our notions of good health presuppose the concept of a united system of physiological functions. Cancer doesn't follow this rule. It is an invasive, foreign organism who's singular purpose is to keep growing no matter what. It is less sophisticated than a virus in that respect. Assessed on a genomic level, you may have less in common with your cancer than you do with your neighbor.
Cancer sucks.