Plan B Forum

I'm not sure how many of the Plan B Forum members remember Smity, who later became Tess, of Le Chat House. She was one of the originators, and the first administrator. Denniz took that roll on several years ago. Tess continued to post often, but left the day to day running of the forum to him.

Tess was diagnosed with bladder cancer perhaps two years ago. She lost her bladder, and did extensive chemotherapy. Unfortunately she did not stay in remission. When the cancer metastasized, she made the informed decision not to fight it. Now it looks as though the end may be near. She posted here today: http://le-chat-house.info/BBS/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7278

Thank you for letting us know, MG. I don't know if she'll see it but I just left one last post in response to that post from Tess in the thread you linked to. It was so good of her to post that news, so that we'd know what's happening and wouldn't be left just guessing and speculating.

One more. So sad for Smitty/Tess and family. Dammit you are all sort of like family but not. Every one who peels away is one more loss.

We're not getting any younger...

Lord Jim wrote:We're not getting any younger...

Ain't that the truth.  Ain't none of us as young as we used to be.
But hopefully we ain't as old as we're gonna get.

-"BB"-

Damn nasty stuff.
My cousin (who will be 57 this month) has bladder cancer. Same diagnosis/treatment/outcome and a very close timeline. He looked pretty good at Christmas, but "pretty good" is relative.

Don't know smitty/tess but please pass along my prayers and good thoughts.

OTOH, my father in law was diagnosed with bladder cancer 27 years ago. He died 20 years later at 92, basically of old age. Sometimes the chemo works, sometimes it only works for a while. At 57 your cousin may still may have a lonnnng time to go.

that's the problems with the treatments; sometime they work, sometime not. And sometimes they work but make you worse off in the long run. I have a friend diagnosed with throat about 10 years ago; he was treated with radiation and chemo and is now cancer free. I will not go into the hell that the treatment was for him (but suffice it to say, it is difficult to imagine how much he suffered), but since then he has been in and out of the hospital many times. He developed a fungal infection as a direct consequence of the treatments that affected his eyes and blood vessels, costing him one eye and partial vision in the other, and vascular problems culminating in two heart attacks and a stroke, leaving him a shell of his former self. He has had vascular problems in his throat and has had several operations to repair dissected vasculature (a side effect of radiation), and has now developed swallowing problems and cannot eat or drink without it going into his lungs--he is forced to feed himself through a feeding tube into his stomach. The man was a fairly accomplished artist and cannot paint anymore, nor can he read or watch much TV due to visual problems. He has little stamina and cannot work in his garden or drive. And he is only 66.

Now, to be fair, he has said he would make the same choices again; he got to walk his daughter down the aisle at her wedding (which was something he really wanted to do) and he tries to make the best of it. But this was a man who was fairly young (55) when diagnosed (and who went to the doctor regularly and was diagnosed early) came out on the short end of the stick. No one's fault--these side effects can and do happen (and it is not common that they all happen to one person)I wonder what I would do if I faced the same decision now.

oldr, I wish your cousin the best, and my prayers and thoughts go out for Smitty and family; but for all the advances in treatments, this still is, as oldr said, damn nasty stuff.

And that damn nasty stuff is exactly why Tess elected not to fight her cancer a second time.

I don't know what I'd do, but hope that if Mrs Mc's cancer ever came back, she'd fight it again. I'm not ready to sleep alone.

I have been through a bout of chemo; it nearly killed me itself (but either it or the 35 bursts of radiation I received seem to have got the angiosarcoma on my scalp). My father went through chemo and decided that dying of lung cancer was the lesser of two evils. I can well believe that to be true.

If I got a diagnosis of something like this (cancer, or something else that was likely to kill me in the long run) I like to think that I would fight it too.  It's not that I want to prolong my existence because life is so short, it's just that I know I'm going to be dead for such a damned long time.

And then there are these words from Dylan Thomas:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-"BB"-

As someone who has watched people fight and die,or has watched some fight and win, at least emporarily, I would have to say that my decision would be based strictly on type, location and stage before I decided on whether to undergo treatment or not. Treatment is rough and the fight is never over until you are dead. I have a co-worker who was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 38. She fought hard and had the best treatment money could get her. (BTW she looked great bald, seriously.) Her's was the type brought about by the gene. She is doing well now but recently said that she had to take meds with really unpleasant side-effects forever, plus the specter of recurrence looms, always. In September my friend Beth died after an 8 year struggle. Breast cancer from the gene again. She was diagnosed as stage 0 and it still spread and killed her. She stopped treatment only when they burned a hole in her chest with radiation. So, if I am diagnosed with stage 4 anything I am not doing treatment. I have seen and believe that is the best choice for me. That's all anyone can do, choose what you think works for you. Mostly it seems to dawn on those who have chosen the fight when it is time to give up and let go.

If I am ever diagnosed with cancer I will probably go along with the first round of chemo/radiation. With almost all cancers this approach often puts it into remission. When it returns -- and it will -- I will probably call off any further treatment unless a "real cure" has been found during my remission.

Yes, there are a lot of people out there who make a conscious choice to go the distance regardless how it alters their physiological well-being. If that's their choice, fine. The cold, hard, truth, however, is once diagnosed with cancer you are eventually going to die of cancer -- if old age doesn't get you first. With one exception, young people with leukemia are sometimes cured -- a true exception to the rule.

I feel it's the fear of death that keeps many people going from one treatment to the next to the next with no change in the final outcome. My life is not so precious that I need to continue it by all means necessary. Death doesn't loom over me like some dark spectre to be feared. Acceptance often beats fighting, it's all a matter of perception and what you believe lies beyond.

Barring unforeseen circumstance I'm good to go, but not one minute sooner than I say so.

Strangely enough , there seems to be some misconception as to what constitutes a cure.It seems that the cancer institute leads people believe that a couple of years without any detectable tumors, equals cured. Let me put it this way , I side with Ray ,( seen to much of it) Nuff said ! .

TPFKA@W wrote:As someone who has watched people fight and die,or has watched some fight and win, at least emporarily, I would have to say that my decision would be based strictly on type, location and stage before I decided on whether to undergo treatment or not. Treatment is rough and the fight is never over until you are dead. I have a co-worker who was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 38. She fought hard and had the best treatment money could get her. (BTW she looked great bald, seriously.) Her's was the type brought about by the gene. She is doing well now but recently said that she had to take meds with really unpleasant side-effects forever, plus the specter of recurrence looms, always. In September my friend Beth died after an 8 year struggle. Breast cancer from the gene again. She was diagnosed as stage 0 and it still spread and killed her. She stopped treatment only when they burned a hole in her chest with radiation. So, if I am diagnosed with stage 4 anything I am not doing treatment. I have seen and believe that is the best choice for me. That's all anyone can do, choose what you think works for you. Mostly it seems to dawn on those who have chosen the fight when it is time to give up and let go.

I very much concur with your sentiments, after watching my friend Linda die of cancer and realizing how much better her last days could have been if she'd not chosen to do an experimental chemo trial in her 4th recurrence of breast cancer when all standard treatment protocols had been exhausted to no effect.

I admired her optimism, but became absolutely certain that in her shoes I'd choose differently - to go see people I love with whatever quality time I'd have left and then accept the dying of the light with as much peace as possible.

But of course I'll never know how I'd really react until I am ever in that position; I suppose it's possible I would choose to fight to the bitter end. FWIW, I've had wonderful hospital experiences over several surgeries and don't necessarily find the idea of dying in one to be terribly depressing.

RayThom wrote:The cold, hard, truth, however, is once diagnosed with cancer you are eventually going to die of cancer -- if old age doesn't get you first.

So if a person was treated for cancer in their early 60s, like my mother, and died 30 years later, then they weren't cured? Thank you for clearing that up for us Dr. RayThom. I've seen a pegged out BS meter smilie somewhere, but it's not available here.

Well, everyone will die of cancer, unless something else kills you first. Kinda "Captain Obvious" there.

We all have to die of something, so if it's not cancer it will be something else. True, but that's not what RayThom said.

MG McAnick wrote:

RayThom wrote:The cold, hard, truth, however, is once diagnosed with cancer you are eventually going to die of cancer -- if old age doesn't get you first.

So if a person was treated for cancer in their early 60s, like my mother, and died 30 years later, then they weren't cured? Thank you for clearing that up for us Dr. RayThom. I've seen a pegged out BS meter smilie somewhere, but it's not available here.

It's not a smiley, MG, but this is even better since there's no chance of someone misunderstanding it.  Just cut-and-save the URL and insert it between the "Img" tags.


-"BB"-

Thank God there are some people with cancer that respond well to treatment, but unfortunately , there are different types of cancers and some people do not respond well to the treatments . I have seen a few around here that beat the "reaper" for a good while,but on the other hand , I have seen a few go really fast.
Have a friend who is in stage 4 cancer of some kind or the other( no hints just one day they realized(the Drs ) She had cancer. She took some treatments(and the little I saw of Her, She looked horrid. Now She went all over the country,trying homoepath and whatever , She looks a lot better now.( Dont get on me grammar Nazis, for the caps on the pronouns,I cap , for people ,that mean a lot to me ).
Then on the other hand,I have had friends and relatives that went pretty fast due to prostate cancer(their ends were not pretty either,they suffered horribly)
Cancer , serious business.
Despite everything, happy 2016 to everyone .