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Comment by 01100011 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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."

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