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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

I'd hate to be that person too. This is how cancer progression can go. Friend went from 'years' to 'months' to 'days' in the space of a few weeks. The last bit went by so fast that I missed out on saying goodbye because he was already too far gone, we'd been on the phone a week and a bit prior to that and he was as good as could be given the prognosis.

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Cancer is so variable. A friend of ours realised they were ill because their half-marathon time (which would have had a heart attack trying to hit) was way worse than expected. He was dead about two months later. Like your freind he went from looking "a bit peeky" but still going on cycle rides, to being barely able to talk in the space of a few weeks.

He and his wife are planning all the things they would do in early retirement. His death taught me an important lesson about not waiting too long to do the things you really want to do with the people you really want to be with.

Another of my wife's friend has been suffering from a cancer that was expected to kill her about two years ago but she just keeps going and surprising everyone. Cancer can be so damn capricious.

Not sure if involved. But Medication can wipe a person out. I’ve been on a few (not cancer) that left me in bed barely able to speak for weeks on end. Skip a couple doses and I’m about and fine.

Yep. Relative had surgery and was told it was at least buying a few months. Few days later, sorry no it’s growing very fast. 10 days later dead.

By contrast it took several years to kill my mother. Even the last days were long and protracted.

There seems to be a wide range of patterns as far as my own experience goes.

My father died from a glioblastoma multiforme. Median survival length for a glio is 11 months. He was diagnosed September of 2010. My father was in his late 50s, lifetime smoker, not particularly amazing or poor health before the diagnosis. He had surgery, chemo, radiotherapy. He died in March 2015. During that time he had occasional seizures and memory issues, but no progressive physical symptoms. We went to concerts while he was sick. He traveled. Other than the memory issues nothing was impairing his life.

The first sign anything went wrong at the end was a routine scan showing a small amount of growth 2 weeks before his death. The second sign anything was wrong was a phone call I got on a Friday where his speech seemed very tired. On Monday I got a phone call saying to fly home. He was awake but not especially alert when I got there. He died on Thursday or Friday.

So all that to echo that the trajectory of this person's illness is believable, whether or not the story is ultimately true.

My father also died from glioblastoma multiforme, diagnosis early May of '16. First sign anything was wrong at all was double vision, shortly after diagnosis he lost balance and quickly become wheel chair and then bed bound, his personality pretty much evaporated and he never was 'himself' again. He died less than three months later due to pneumonia he was unable to fight from taking chemotherapy. Early 60s, good general health though somewhat obese, never smoked or drank.

The doctors told us they had never had a GBM patient deteriorate that quickly. Watching somebody perish from pneumonia put it pretty close to the top of the list of ways I don't want to go.

In any case this is also to say that we don't want to make too many assumptions about whether a case is real just based on timelines. People can either blow right pass the timeline, line up with it, or perish very early.

My father died recently from sudden illness at a really very advanced age -- with some problems from dementia that never really got to the worst possible. I lost my mother to one of the worst cancers possible when I was much younger (again suddenly but in the process of a long terminal diagnosis).

So I half want to upvote you both for the points you're making about variable, unpredictable survival times after diagnosis, and half want to hug you both in sympathy for the way you lost your fathers. That must have been rough and I hope you have found the support you needed.

Likewise, it doesn't sound like you had an easy time of it yourself.

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