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Comment by annoyingnoob | Hacker News Reader

When my grandmother was diagnosed with lung cancer she refused medical treatment. She did not want to go through the therapy, the medical process was a worse outcome than death for her. She seemed to just decide that she was done, resigned to her fate.

My uncle offered her some kind of herbal tea as a solution to her cancer. Grandma had a worse view of alternative medicine than the actual medicine she had already refused. I had never seen her so upset with my uncle. Her reaction has stayed with me.

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I find it admirable that she was able to be accepting of her fate. I wish I could be that strong, although perhaps it comes with age ("I've lived a full life, I am ready").

I don't believe in naturopathy either, but I wonder if it still has a positive impact for those whom believe in it, ie. the placebo effect.

It's probably easier if your odds are not as good as 50%.

True, but that may be the perfect opportunity to place hope in these alternative remedies, which she refused.

I have a family member with lung cancer and when they felt traditional options have been exhausted, they went full alternative. TCM and such.

Her husband, my grandfather, had died some 30 years prior. She was alone for a long time, more than anything I think she wanted a partner but never seemed to find the right one. She may have felt like medicine was only a temporary solution and not worth it for a relatively short time more.

I think being informed helps too. I have a couple of extended family members who made this choice. While both were older, they were also both doctors. I imagine that having a clear picture of what treatment looks like can clarify the decision.

I've had 3 close friends who fought cancer.

2 of them said, after beating it, that they would have chosen to die if they could do it over. One of those people was treated with modern immune therapies, which still left him permanently messed up. My other friend with cancer isn't around to tell me his thoughts on it.

At this point in my life, 45 with no kids and good life insurance, I would not choose to fight cancer if I developed it.

2x cancer survivor here. It's not a binary choice. The melanoma was chopped out and I was closely monitored for 10 years. Would have killed me in a year or two if I did nothing. The colon cancer was chopped out through an 18" resection and I've ridden 10 centuries in the three years since. Spent two weeks in the Canal St. Martin neighborhood of Paris with my partner. Had a bunch of other lovely trips, remodeled the house, cooked a thousand lovely meals. Nope, I think if/when the crap comes back, I fight it again.

Bravo.

> I've ridden 10 centuries in the three years since

Sorry for the ignorance, but what does that expression mean? I've never seen it before.

A century is a 100-mile bike ride. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_ride

Just starting cycling and feeling lost. This is damn impressive! Consider me inspired on multiple fronts.

That's exactly it. It all depends on what cancer and how far it has spread. Making informed decisions under that kind of pressure is hard. Congrats on your status, and those bike trips are very impressive.

Medical treatments, especially cancer treatments, are not always successful. You could suffer through the treatment and still not be cured. It seems reasonable to say "No thanks. I've had enough."

I had a bone marrow transplant in 1989. 1 year mortality was 95%.

It's a fucking terrible way to die. FWIW, the AIDS patients down the hall had it as bad or worse.

It took me a long time to think the effort was worthwhile. And if people like me didn't get fed into the meat grinder of progress, we'd still be banging the rocks together.

Your grandma is amazing. So many people get sucked into the 'fight the cancer' thing. I've seen it near several times now in the last year and every time the outcome is the same, but the road there is just horrendous. Adding a few weeks, months at best, to a life with terrible quality of life does not seem worth it to me.

It all depends on the cancer and the prognosis of course but undergoing all kinds of radical treatments with low chances of success ends up robbing you of those last weeks better spent on seeing the people dear to you.

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