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Comment by Aloha | Hacker News Reader

I understand the existential fear of the eternal dirt nap - but I dont care how much my loved one will miss me - because the quality of those last memories will be poor - and eternally painful to them, and will color the memories of me from the good times.

Because of that, I would rather trade those moments of watching me die in the most agonizing, painful way imaginable, for the better memories - the times before I got sick.

I watched my grandmother die, of cancer - there is nothing, literally nothing - that would allow me to put someone else thru that - at least not without their full consent, and making sure they knew of what was to come.

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It must depend on the person, how memories weigh. I watched a man who was basically my adoptive grandfather go through chemo and die of cancer in a hospital bed set up in our living room, but the memories of all our beach and forest excursions are much more prominent to me now, and its a bittersweet memory to me to think of the old westerns we watched (his favorite genre) when he was stuck in bed.

I guess I would try to figure out, based on the people around me, how I could make them happiest long term (which I think is the same thing you're saying)

I watched my grandpa die of cancer, not being able to eat for few weeks among other worse things and think it's a bit weird to think of it as something you'd put others through.

Yes it's difficult to support someone in their last days, and it's never pretty, but it's not their fault. It also didn't make forget all the other years I had with my grandpa.

The end doesn't have to make you forget the rest.

You never know how people will going to respond - on the other hand, if there was some chance for five year or whatever survival, the people you're closest to might never forgive you for not trying if you refuse treatment... You'd hope not, but you never know.

Then there's the problem that some have a few of the people closest to them in one camp, fully accepting, and some in the other camp, which can be terrible (I've seen it especially with people I know where it's their parent who was dying, with different siblings going either way).

One of my nearest avoided the pain of dying from cancer and years of painful treatment simply by suiciding. It was hard to accept her choice not to stay with us for few more years, denying our care. But of course I forgave her. We all forgave her. Edit: better said, we had no business forgiving her or not, that would be the worst forms of entitlement I could imagine. What I mean is that we still love her, no hard feelings.

You never know how people will going to respond

That’s the thing. You might read “drug extends median overall survival by 3 months”.

Big deal right?

Well that’s the median. In reality it looks more like:

- 5% see a complete response (cure)

- 40% see a partial response

- 55% see no response

And of those 40% who see a partial response the median is 3 months but the range is 1 to 29 months.

So now do you do it? 1 in 20 chance of a cure and 1 in 20 chance of two more years of life and a 1 in 10 chance of 1 more year of life.

This is an interesting position to take. As someone who’s in the middle of chemotherapy I don’t think anyone’s in a position to judge me if I’m not interested in putting myself through this treatment anymore. They have no skin in the game and they’re not the ones having to deal with the side effects.

> the people you're closest to might never forgive you for not trying if you refuse treatment.

Who cares, you're dead.

You never know how you will deal with this until it's there.

I watched two incredible grandparents' life ebb away painfully in hospital beds and hospice care. It was agonizing to sit helplessly while they suffered for days on end. But it helped me come to peace with my actual powerlessness in the most important aspects of life. Personally, I'm glad they didn't take that from me by choosing their own moment of death away from family.

Just my experience and I don't discount that that same experience could have been traumatizing for someone else.

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