So do you believe in quantity of life (taking the chemo) or quality of life (not taking the chemo)?
I believe in both. When chemo changes from providing quality time to quantity of time is when change needs to occur in my opinion.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
The news this morning
I may strike a nerve with some, but I need to share my thoughts about this Daniel living in Minnesota. The Today show ran a story about a 13 year old boy who is no longer taking chemo therapy for non Hodgkin's lymphoma and how his mother is being sued. I take this stuff personally for a plethora of reasons.
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3 comments:
I don't care about the age of the patient - if there is no chance for survival, and chemo is doing more harm, then let them go in their own time, peacefully. If chemo is extending their time by months or more, and the side effects aren't too bad, then I'd always encourage continuing!
I've seen a lot of cancer in my time and based on that, I'd like to get rid of chemo the minute the illness becomes terminal, but in the case of a child or younger person....it's too sad either way!
I'm a fan of chemo, however the patient HAS to feel like they have control over their treatment. I mentioned that I really had to play mind games with myself so that I'd go one time, and my chemo nurse told me that if I didn't show up one week, they'd send somebody to get me--that they do that with all their patients. I can't begin to tell you how much that turned me off. I went from feeling like (even if it wasn't true) that I had some say in my treatment to feeling like I was an animal being pushed through the motions. Although the labs confirmed that the chemo was working, despite my physical symptoms getting worse, it made me want to not go back. I *knew* I had to, I *knew* it was working, yet I wanted to quit. I don't even know if that makes sense, but I know so much of it was mental for me. It's not just a physical battle, it's an emotional and mental battle too.
So, the short side of my loooonnnnggg winded answer is I believe in patient control. When the patient says enough is enough, it is.
It is a tough one. I think that patients should have a say, people should be free to choose and quality of life should be considered. I am big on freedom of choice.
However, as a mom, I can't imagine not getting treatment for my children, especially since the doctors have said that caught early, like the boys, it has a very high rate of being cured. I can't imagine not trying everything that is available to try and save their lives....
If there had been any treatment that would have made my mom better and helped her quality of life, we would have gone for it. Towards the end though, when the cancer had spread to her brain, the docs told us that treating it would have given us time, but not for long and it wouldn't have done much for her pain, so we opted to not do anything.
It is tough, and I hope that that boy gets better....
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