A Road Map for Dying of Cancer

[Guest guest]

A ROAD MAP FOR DYING OF CANCER

 

Since most Americans trust their doctors and believe

that they will be given the best chance of survival by

following the traditional treatment of surgery,

radiation and therapy, the least I can offer is a road

map of the road you will likely travel over the next

seven years or so. I’m giving you this roadmap

because I will not be traveling this road with you.

I’m saying goodbye, farewell, best wishes, but I am

not following you down that road. I will not sit

submissively by your bed and encourage you as you are

led to your death. You will likely have many others

to do that, so good luck, farewell, and good bye.

 

When you cancer is first discovered, it will likely be

small, assuming it is cancer at all. Not to worry,

because if it was incorrectly diagnosed, you stand a

good chance of developing cancer from the radiation

therapy and chemotherapy which you will receive.

 

At this stage the chemotherapy you are given will be

relatively light, making you sick, ruining your

energy, risking the loss of your children, but with

family support, you will weather this stage and return

to “normal” life. Of course, the missing breast (s)

will be a private issue between you and your partner.

Mutilated and frightened, you will attempt to get on

with your life, awaiting the five-year mark when you

can declare yourself “cancer-free.”

 

Around the five-year mark or shortly thereafter you

will be tested for the last time, and for some reason,

the cancer has “returned” and now has spread. It was

actually there all the time, embedding itself into

your body. The reality is that it was not cut out

with the breast because it was not localized in the

breast. Cutting your breast off was just a

hit-or-miss approach.

 

Now the Big Time treatment begins with all of its

fanfare. Now you are visiting the doctor several

times a week for assorted therapies-chemo, radiation,

and surgery. The entire family circles around you,

driving you, picking up prescriptions, taking you in

for treatment. God hope that you are strong because

the regimen you will follow would exhaust the average

person. You become the “star” of the show. At this

stage, you still feel great and can’t believe you are

really sick with cancer. You are told that with your

confident attitude, you have an excellent chance of

beating the odds.

 

At this point, you may take on an incredible interest

in vitamin supplements and nutrition, but you continue

your bargain with the devil that if you just obey and

do what your doctor tells you to do, you will have the

best chance of seeing your children graduate from high

school, attending their marriages, seeing your

grandchildren.

 

The pain starts to set in big time. The doctor

prescribes you some of the good stuff, as much as you

need, and you go on with your duties.

 

At this point it is hard to imagine that you are dying

and that within months you will be a wheelchair or

bedridden. You ignore suggestions to make a video

message for your children, to write your will, to

assemble a list of friends to contact on your death.

 

The truth is, you will likely be dead within a year.

 

Now you are told that the chemotherapy is not working

but there is this or that other experimental

chemotherapy with a small percentage of chance of

success. You grab at anything.

 

As the disease progresses, you become bedridden, and

it is harder and harder for your family to care for

you. Your bed is moved to the living room and you

become the queen of the household. You are the center

of attention with everyone trying to please you and

give you rest so you can recover. You are the good,

obedient patient. You are even helping science by

submitting to experimental treatments.

 

You may go out at spend large amounts of money on a

magnetic mattress pad or some other device in hopes of

a miracle cure since the chemo has not worked at all.

 

Now it’s time to go in the hospital. By this time, you

feel best when you lie on your back, still. You are

given a luxury room with a view and better art,

private room service. This all reinforces your belief

that you are special and somehow you will beat the

odds and survive.

 

There is room service with a delicious menu, movies

that can be ordered. It’s quite glamorous to have

friends stop by and visit. “Your” oncologist will

visit you on a daily basis, stopping briefly, his face

gray like a mortician’s. But you don’t see the look

on his face. You are still hoping on hope.

 

At this stage the big danger is bedsores. Even with

the best care, it is easy to not move the body enough.

You friends and family are shocked to see a huge hole

has rotted in your underside. You don’t feel anything

because of the meds. This isn’t supposed to happen,

but in all fairness, it is hard to avoid. The hospital

does an operation to address the first bedsore. Later

it just cleans it regularly and packs it with gauze.

 

You are told you have exhausted all of the

experimental chemo options. Your nurse, who sincerely

seems to have believed it might have worked,

sympathizes with you, feeling truly bad that your

options are up.

 

You might as well go home to die. A home care

provider will stop by daily to help you. You are back

home in the living room, surrounded by pills, a

catheter to urinate. Your small son helps by emptying

the urine bag. The children are all so loving and

supportive. Your husband buys you whatever you desire

to eat. A special ramp it built to the front door so

your wheel chair can get in and out. You won’t really

be needing it for much longer.

 

One night, you suddenly start to die. You mother jumps

on you and performs CPR, bringing you back to life.

But it’s too much; she doesn’t want to go through that

again. She decides she can’t bear to see you die.

 

The family starts looking for hospice care. Many

hospice centers are very bad, but your lesbian sister

finds you a room in a new AIDS hospice which has few

AIDS patients to fill it.

 

It’s very luxurious, and you are able to get digital

TV, which you really appreciate. The professional,

attractive nurse treats you as if you are there for a

short visit although everyone knows you could not be

admitted unless you were expected to live less than 6

months.

 

Your family comes every day to visit you. Your

children bring artwork to put on your stylish walls.

The family tries to combine visits with you with trips

to nearby restaurants, to ease the stress. Everyone is

still feeling very elegant, special, pampered, and

just not the type to fail.

 

The end is nearing. You are a model guest at this

hospice, pleasant and charming with the nurses and

other guests whom you meet when you are wheeled to the

art room for a little diversion.

 

Before long your health declines further. After a

month or so you appear to be dying, so the hospice

makes the decision to end food and water. The family

obediently follows doctor’s orders and is given a

little swab with lemon flavor to swab your lips with

water. You quick fall into a coma due to lack of

water and are dead within a few days.

 

When it is time to bury you, there are numerous papers

that need to be filled out for the funeral home. The

funeral home director is frustrated that these were

not filled out in advance of death. To him it was

obvious that your loved one would be dying. The

husband is scurrying around attending to these last

details which only a husband or next of kin is

authorized to decide.

 

At your funeral your husband cannot believe how

beautiful you look and reminds the children of all of

your saintly qualities. The entire community comments

on what a wonderful and kind person you were. You die

a saintly death.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

I have metastatic breats cancer and I really didn't need to read this

 

C

 

as <glkbreeze wrote:

 

 

 

A ROAD MAP FOR DYING OF CANCER

 

Since most Americans trust their doctors and believe

that they will be given the best chance of survival by

following the traditional treatment of surgery,

radiation and therapy, the least I can offer is a road

map of the road you will likely travel over the next

seven years or so. I’m giving you this roadmap

because I will not be traveling this road with you.

I’m saying goodbye, farewell, best wishes, but I am

not following you down that road. I will not sit

submissively by your bed and encourage you as you are

led to your death. You will likely have many others

to do that, so good luck, farewell, and good bye.

 

When you cancer is first discovered, it will likely be

small, assuming it is cancer at all. Not to worry,

because if it was incorrectly diagnosed, you stand a

good chance of developing cancer from the radiation

therapy and chemotherapy which you will receive.

 

At this stage the chemotherapy you are given will be

relatively light, making you sick, ruining your

energy, risking the loss of your children, but with

family support, you will weather this stage and return

to “normal” life. Of course, the missing breast (s)

will be a private issue between you and your partner.

Mutilated and frightened, you will attempt to get on

with your life, awaiting the five-year mark when you

can declare yourself “cancer-free.”

 

Around the five-year mark or shortly thereafter you

will be tested for the last time, and for some reason,

the cancer has “returned” and now has spread. It was

actually there all the time, embedding itself into

your body. The reality is that it was not cut out

with the breast because it was not localized in the

breast. Cutting your breast off was just a

hit-or-miss approach.

 

Now the Big Time treatment begins with all of its

fanfare. Now you are visiting the doctor several

times a week for assorted therapies-chemo, radiation,

and surgery. The entire family circles around you,

driving you, picking up prescriptions, taking you in

for treatment. God hope that you are strong because

the regimen you will follow would exhaust the average

person. You become the “star” of the show. At this

stage, you still feel great and can’t believe you are

really sick with cancer. You are told that with your

confident attitude, you have an excellent chance of

beating the odds.

 

At this point, you may take on an incredible interest

in vitamin supplements and nutrition, but you continue

your bargain with the devil that if you just obey and

do what your doctor tells you to do, you will have the

best chance of seeing your children graduate from high

school, attending their marriages, seeing your

grandchildren.

 

The pain starts to set in big time. The doctor

prescribes you some of the good stuff, as much as you

need, and you go on with your duties.

 

At this point it is hard to imagine that you are dying

and that within months you will be a wheelchair or

bedridden. You ignore suggestions to make a video

message for your children, to write your will, to

assemble a list of friends to contact on your death.

 

The truth is, you will likely be dead within a year.

 

Now you are told that the chemotherapy is not working

but there is this or that other experimental

chemotherapy with a small percentage of chance of

success. You grab at anything.

 

As the disease progresses, you become bedridden, and

it is harder and harder for your family to care for

you. Your bed is moved to the living room and you

become the queen of the household. You are the center

of attention with everyone trying to please you and

give you rest so you can recover. You are the good,

obedient patient. You are even helping science by

submitting to experimental treatments.

 

You may go out at spend large amounts of money on a

magnetic mattress pad or some other device in hopes of

a miracle cure since the chemo has not worked at all.

 

Now it’s time to go in the hospital. By this time, you

feel best when you lie on your back, still. You are

given a luxury room with a view and better art,

private room service. This all reinforces your belief

that you are special and somehow you will beat the

odds and survive.

 

There is room service with a delicious menu, movies

that can be ordered. It’s quite glamorous to have

friends stop by and visit. “Your” oncologist will

visit you on a daily basis, stopping briefly, his face

gray like a mortician’s. But you don’t see the look

on his face. You are still hoping on hope.

 

At this stage the big danger is bedsores. Even with

the best care, it is easy to not move the body enough.

You friends and family are shocked to see a huge hole

has rotted in your underside. You don’t feel anything

because of the meds. This isn’t supposed to happen,

but in all fairness, it is hard to avoid. The hospital

does an operation to address the first bedsore. Later

it just cleans it regularly and packs it with gauze.

 

You are told you have exhausted all of the

experimental chemo options. Your nurse, who sincerely

seems to have believed it might have worked,

sympathizes with you, feeling truly bad that your

options are up.

 

You might as well go home to die. A home care

provider will stop by daily to help you. You are back

home in the living room, surrounded by pills, a

catheter to urinate. Your small son helps by emptying

the urine bag. The children are all so loving and

supportive. Your husband buys you whatever you desire

to eat. A special ramp it built to the front door so

your wheel chair can get in and out. You won’t really

be needing it for much longer.

 

One night, you suddenly start to die. You mother jumps

on you and performs CPR, bringing you back to life.

But it’s too much; she doesn’t want to go through that

again. She decides she can’t bear to see you die.

 

The family starts looking for hospice care. Many

hospice centers are very bad, but your lesbian sister

finds you a room in a new AIDS hospice which has few

AIDS patients to fill it.

 

It’s very luxurious, and you are able to get digital

TV, which you really appreciate. The professional,

attractive nurse treats you as if you are there for a

short visit although everyone knows you could not be

admitted unless you were expected to live less than 6

months.

 

Your family comes every day to visit you. Your

children bring artwork to put on your stylish walls.

The family tries to combine visits with you with trips

to nearby restaurants, to ease the stress. Everyone is

still feeling very elegant, special, pampered, and

just not the type to fail.

 

The end is nearing. You are a model guest at this

hospice, pleasant and charming with the nurses and

other guests whom you meet when you are wheeled to the

art room for a little diversion.

 

Before long your health declines further. After a

month or so you appear to be dying, so the hospice

makes the decision to end food and water. The family

obediently follows doctor’s orders and is given a

little swab with lemon flavor to swab your lips with

water. You quick fall into a coma due to lack of

water and are dead within a few days.

 

When it is time to bury you, there are numerous papers

that need to be filled out for the funeral home. The

funeral home director is frustrated that these were

not filled out in advance of death. To him it was

obvious that your loved one would be dying. The

husband is scurrying around attending to these last

details which only a husband or next of kin is

authorized to decide.

 

At your funeral your husband cannot believe how

beautiful you look and reminds the children of all of

your saintly qualities. The entire community comments

on what a wonderful and kind person you were. You die

a saintly death.

[Guest guest]

Yes it wasnt really the nicest article. In fact i didnt really see the point of

it at all. Whoever wrote it obviously doesn't believe in mainstream treatment

(fair enough), but does not propose any alternatives or give any hope to the

reader. It comes across as quite mean actually and would be pretty depressing to

read if you have been diagnosed with cancer. Sorry you had to read this

Christina. When i get the time (in the next few days) I will find some of the

better articles that have been posted here in the past.

 

Regards,

Cara

 

--- christina <cbmd3 wrote:

>

>

> I have metastatic breats cancer and I really didn't need to read this

>

> C

>

> as <glkbreeze wrote:

>

>

>

> A ROAD MAP FOR DYING OF CANCER

>

> Since most Americans trust their doctors and believe

> that they will be given the best chance of survival by

> following the traditional treatment of surgery,

> radiation and therapy, the least I can offer is a road

> map of the road you will likely travel over the next

> seven years or so. I’m giving you this roadmap

> because I will not be traveling this road with you.

> I’m saying goodbye, farewell, best wishes, but I am

> not following you down that road. I will not sit

> submissively by your bed and encourage you as you are

> led to your death. You will likely have many others

> to do that, so good luck, farewell, and good bye.

>....

 

 

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