Chemotherapy and pregnancy - the dilemma.

revitup · 22-09-2017 11:08PM

I think we are scraping the bottom of the barrel with this post people. This brave woman wasn't prepared to kill a healthy baby and arrange it's funerial. Simple As. Why would anyone have an opinion one way or the other on this awful life an death event.?
I have to quote from Registered User "A Little Pony" in this post...."No getting away from aggressive brain cancer." Nuff Said..!

qo2cj1dsne8y4k · 22-09-2017 11:10PM

She made the choice she felt was best for her family and we should leave it at that. This may have been a battle she couldn't fight, and as a mother tried her best to protect the child within her. With a terminal illness some patients won't want to spend what time they have left being sick and being a shell of their former selves.

A cancer diagnosis is horrific at anytime but this case seems especially cruel, she acted in the manner she felt was most appropriate and that was her decision, and a very brave one at that.

gctest50 · 22-09-2017 11:11PM

revitup wrote: »

I think we are scraping the bottom of the barrel with this post people. This brave woman wasn't prepared to kill a healthy baby and arrange it's funerial. Simple As. Why would anyone have an opinion one way or the other on this awful life an death event.?
I have to quote from Registered User "A Little Pony" in this post...."No getting away from aggressive brain cancer." Nuff Said..!

revitup wrote: »

........

kill a healthy baby !

who's killing babies ?

/le abortion threads brings all the newbs

revitup
Registered User

Join Date: Sep 2017
Posts: 1
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tis a grand post for someone who just signed up right now

post more, tis great craic

,

TheZenMonkey · 22-09-2017 11:22PM

gctest50 wrote: »

tis a grand post for someone who just signed up right now

post more, tis great craic

,

Thanks, I had a whole reply to that person planned but you said it all. Definitely not worth my time.

One eyed Jack wrote: »

I think it will be explained to them in a way that is appropriate for them to understand.

I hear you. But kids do grow up to have second thoughts about things that were explained to them when they were young. Especially if they begin questioning their religion, which does apply in this case. Things I thought were perfectly fine in my childhood for many years, I now understand were kind of unconscionable. (I had the opportunity to rethink many things when one of my parents did something *completely* unconscionable a few years ago; I'm not talking about some fake recovered memories in a therapist's office or anything!) So that's my fear for them. Hopefully it turns out like the situations you've known and this doesn't happen with these kids.

eviltwin · 22-09-2017 11:24PM

revitup wrote: »

I think we are scraping the bottom of the barrel with this post people. This brave woman wasn't prepared to kill a healthy baby and arrange it's funerial. Simple As. Why would anyone have an opinion one way or the other on this awful life an death event.?
I have to quote from Registered User "A Little Pony" in this post...."No getting away from aggressive brain cancer." Nuff Said..!

You went to the bother of rereging just to post that crap? Twat.

The sooner boards sort out this multiple accounts the better.

Bitches Be Trypsin · 23-09-2017 12:28AM

That's just really really sad

StupidLikeAFox · 23-09-2017 03:18AM

LexieOnRale wrote: »

She made the choice she felt was best for her family and we should leave it at that.

This is all that has to be said really, everything else is irrelevant

23-09-2017 03:26AM

A Little Pony wrote: »

No coming back from aggressive brain cancer.

There can be, seen it several times.

23-09-2017 03:28AM

Candie wrote: »

It's not fair to imply that she's a selfish mother. We are not in a position to judge her or the quality of her decision.

I was gonna quote Seamus with a "Yeesh" because I generally disagree with all he says. :pac: But yeah, kids already there, I can't understand that decision at all. I just hope I'm never in or near anything like a similar situation to it.

B.A._Baracus · 23-09-2017 05:07AM

That's bloody sad

That woman is a fu*king hero. Giving her life so the child could have the best chance at surviving.

Poor husband now. Can't imagine what he is going through.

gctest50 · 23-09-2017 06:03AM

B.A._Baracus wrote: »

....

That woman is a fu*king hero. Giving her life so the child could have the best chance at surviving...

She was 8 weeks at the time, pure fu*king heroics

"Then, not even a month later, the couple received two pieces of shocking news. Carrie's tumour was back - and she was eight weeks pregnant."

Outlaw Pete · 23-09-2017 07:59AM

gctest50 wrote: »

She was 8 weeks at the time, pure fu*king heroics

She selflessly gave up a chance at possibly living a longer life just so her baby could have a chance of living.

What's not heroic about that? It absolutely was and here's another story about a woman who made a similarly selfless and brave choice to not have an abortion:

Mother who gave up her life to save her baby

When Cheryl Anderson was diagnosed with cancer at 32, her one concern was for the unborn child she was carrying.

Her daughter Taylor was born two months ago - tragically, Cheryl died the same day. Here, her husband Leigh, 36, talks about his courageous wife. . .

Taylor Anderson was born on August 23 and, in years to come, her birthday, like any much-loved little girl's, will be marked with cakes, streamers and a pile of presents.

But it will also be a day of sorrow for Taylor and her family. For her birthday is also the day that her mother, Cheryl, died, just hours after she'd used up the last vestiges of her strength in bringing her tiny daughter into the world.

Cheryl, who was only 32, was diagnosed with cancer in May when she was two months pregnant. Her response was utterly selfless, inspired by the strength of the maternal bond. She refused an abortion and even went without pain relief in case it damaged the baby.

At six months, doctors felt time had run out, and performed an emergency Caesarean. Cheryl came round from the anaesthetic for long enough to hear the news that her daughter had survived the traumatic delivery. Hours later, Cheryl slipped away in her husband's arms.

'Cheryl and I had been together for 13 years and I never quite realised how much she did to make Georgia and I happy until she was gone,' he says.

It was one day in May this year that Cheryl asked her GP to check out a small lump on the side of her neck. Both she and Leigh were so confident that it was harmless, that they took Georgia along to the local hospital to pick up the biopsy results.

'We realised it might be bad news when we noticed several nurses milling around and sensed a strange atmosphere. And when two of them very directly led Georgia away to find a balloon, Cheryl and I looked at each other and at once registered alarm.

'The specialist came straight to the point. He sat us down and said: "There's no easy way to say this. I'm afraid we found cancer in the biopsy.

Leigh pauses to compose himself. 'We both sat there, utterly stunned. Cheryl was barely out of her 20s - it was the last thing we expected to hear.

Cheryl couldn't have chemotherapy because it would harm her baby - and neither would she consider an abortion, not for religious reasons but because she wanted another child so much. She had such a powerful sense of duty towards the baby that was growing inside her.

Instead, she underwent a major operation that month in which the rapidly growing tumour was removed from her neck.

By August, though, Cheryl was growing weaker and was succumbing to the cancer which was spreading through her body.

One day towards the end of the month, Cheryl went to hospital for a check-up and when the doctors examined her they refused to let her leave.

'The obstetrician asked me to go next door for a quick word while Cheryl settled into her bed,' recalls Leigh. 'She just came out with it and said: "I'm sorry. Your wife is very, very ill. We will have to perform a Caesarean and there is a chance she may not survive. '

Leigh waited outside the theatre and, after what seemed like for ever, two nurses rushed out bearing a tiny bundle. It was his new daughter, wrapped in a blanket and making a strange squeaking sound like a baby lamb.

Of course, I hoped more than anything that Cheryl would hold her, too, but when she came round from the anaesthetic, the doctors told me the operation had revealed cancer in her liver, her spine and in her spleen.

One of the nurses took a Polaroid of Taylor and I rushed down with it to show Cheryl. By the time I got there, she was so weak she could barely smile at the sight of the baby she had sacrificed so much to save. But at least she saw the picture and knew that Taylor had arrived safely.

'I was sitting beside her, with my arms around her, trying to soothe her. Then Cheryl looked straight at me and said: "Let go of me, I've already been out once, you know. With that, she looked upwards, and then she was gone.'

Leigh still wonders if Cheryl was having an out-of-body experience. Was she trying to tell him she had left her body once before, in her first struggle?

He says it is a comfort to him to think that Cheryl was ready to leave and wanted to go.

'About a week after she died, I came across her diary and address book. As I was leafing through it, I noticed she'd added some words on the flyleaf.

'Usually she had beautiful handwriting but that day, her last, she'd managed to spell out laboriously, in almost childish writing: "Leigh and Georgia. I love you.

My heart banged in my chest when I saw it, and I knew that she had not been expecting to make it, despite all the messages of optimism I'd been trying to convey to her.'

Taylor came home last Wednesday weighing 5lb 9oz, and it was an emotional moment when I brought her into the house. It was such a relief after all those weeks of worry, but that was mixed with intense regret that Cheryl wasn't there to see her daughter come home.

Annasopra · 23-09-2017 08:30AM

Toots wrote: »

Chemo goes into your veins, so it affects your entire body, there would be no way of doing it without harming the fetus unfortunately.

Huh? I know a woman who found out she had breast cancer and was pregnant at the same time. She had chemo for the first few months of her pregnancy and he is about 10 now.

gctest50 · 23-09-2017 08:51AM

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

She selflessly gave up a chance at possibly living a longer life just so her baby could have a chance of living.

What's not heroic about that? It absolutely was ..

She had 5 more kids, she may have got a few years with them

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

........and here's another story about a woman who made a similarly selfless and brave choice to not have an abortion:

wtf does that have to do with it ?

anyway here's the GoFundme :

Cure 4 Carrie

https://www.gofundme.com/3otz860

flaneur · 23-09-2017 09:27AM

_Dara_ wrote: »

Brain cancer is almost always fatal. I can understand why this lady decided to give her foetus the best shot she could. Treatment would likely not have saved her. Prolonged her life a bit perhaps but not saved her.

It's different if the treatment might be curative. Then a tough, agonising decision must be made.

You can’t really make generalizations about cancer of any type. Some brain tumors and cancers (including the one she had) have very poor prognosis. Others, are highly treatable with modern techniques.

There are plenty of people who may be reading this forum who may be diagnosed with brain tumors and may have every possibility of a good outcome. So I just think it’s important to bring that up.

The reality is we don’t know what her chances were as we don’t have access to all the details of her case. It’s quite possible she had a very low likelihood of a realistic cure or life extension with an acceptable quality of life.

I would never really moralise or second guess someone’s decisions not to pursue what could be very harsh cancer treatments. You’re really sometimes looking at picking the least worst outcome and that may not necessarily mean aggressive treatment.

I just think in much the way you can find people making binary arguments about pro life issues, you can get equally binary arguments about people’s choices in cancer treatment. Sometimes it’s worth pursuing, sometimes it isn’t. It all depends on the likely outcomes and on how arduous the treatment is. You can sometimes end up in the realm of “heroic medicine” where the treatment is worse than the disease.

That’s why I think it’s really a pointless exercise to try to reverse engineer this woman’s decisions. She opted to continue with a pregnancy and not pursue cancer treatments. That’s really her call and I don’t think it’s up to a bunch of internet posters without any facts to judge her decisions or ascribe some notion that it was driven by any kind of dogma either.

She weighed up the odds and made a choice.

TheZenMonkey · 23-09-2017 11:17AM

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

What's not heroic about that?

When you already have six kids? Ask an environmental scientist, for one. For two, see other points already made in this thread.

Whether her decision was heroic is subjective. I don't find your opinion ridiculous at all, but I do find the idea that it's an objective fact to be ridiculous.

_Dara_ · 23-09-2017 11:24AM

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

She selflessly gave up a chance at possibly living a longer life just so her baby could have a chance of living.

What's not heroic about that? It absolutely was and here's another story about a woman who made a similarly selfless and brave choice to not have an abortion:

She had a type of brain tumour that there is no coming back from. It would be agonising but it really wasn't a case of sacrificing her own life. This illness would have 100% killed her. If she'd been diagnosed with early stage breast cancer or Hodgkin's Lymphoma, for example, an abortion would be something that would have made a lot of sense, as they are survivable cancers. And she may well have taken the abortion option.

_Dara_ · 23-09-2017 11:44AM

flaneur wrote: »

You can’t really make generalizations about cancer of any type. Some brain tumors and cancers (including the one she had) have very poor prognosis. Others, are highly treatable with modern techniques.

Where does this idea come from? Of course you can. And it's shite like the bolded bit that causes additional misery for terminal cancer patients, when they have people telling them to "think positive" and "don't give up" because "you never know!". Once a cancer hits a certain stage, the outcome is very clear in the case of many cancers. For example, 100% of metastatic breast cancer patients will die from the cancer in a relatively short amount of time unless something else gets them first. There is no oncologist out there that will them it is a survivable illness. They will told that any treatment they get will is just to prolong their life for a short while. I bring up breast cancer because many people seem to be under the impression that it's survivable at any stage. There absolutely can be generalisations made about many cancers though I'm not sure generalisation is the right term. Glioblastoma multiforme is one of the cancers that you can say someone will not live for very long with. Even for the outliers, it's a terminal illness. They are outliers in that they might get a longer period of life post diagnosis but they will still die from it. You say there might be brain tumour patients reading. Any cancer patient will have been clued in on their prognosis if their oncologist is any good. They won't be given an exact time frame but they will know if their illness is terminal or not.

I don't know where this idea comes from that you can't proclaim any cancer to be terminal, even if it is. It's strange.

One eyed Jack · 23-09-2017 11:55AM

_Dara_ wrote: »

She had a type of brain tumour that there is no coming back from. It would be agonising but it really wasn't a case of sacrificing her own life. This illness would have 100% killed her. If she'd been diagnosed with early stage breast cancer or Hodgkin's Lymphoma, for example, an abortion would be something that would have made a lot of sense, as they are survivable cancers. And she may well have taken the abortion option.

I don't know anything about those types of cancers but would an abortion have an effect on increasing a woman's chances of survival? Or would continuing her pregnancy have an effect on decreasing her chances of survival?

I'm just thinking that if a woman who is fundamentally opposed to the idea of an abortion, what would be the likelihood of her actually choosing to have an abortion, and the effect it would have on her should she actually survive? I think that's a lot of the dilema too - that it didn't make sense to her to have an abortion because she would have had to live with having had an abortion.

_Dara_ · 23-09-2017 12:02PM

One eyed Jack wrote: »

I don't know anything about those types of cancers but would an abortion have an effect on increasing a woman's chances of survival? Or would continuing her pregnancy have an effect on decreasing her chances of survival?

In and of themselves, no. In some cases, the curative treatment would be, so to speak, contraindicated with pregnancy so it would be either abortion or a potentially damaging delay in treatment. Of course it's a dilemma - she still might not choose to have the abortion. But for a highly survivable form of cancer, having an abortion makes more sense for the mother-to-be than if she was diagnosed with a sure-to-be-fatal cancer. But it's still up to the parents-to-be to decide whether to gamble in delaying curative treatment.

qo2cj1dsne8y4k · 23-09-2017 12:10PM

There's no right or wrong thing to do here. Nobody should be expected to carry a child if terminally ill. Pregnancy is a huge toll on your body and if you're ill and don't want to go through with a pregnancy in your final months, that's okay and you do not need to explain yourself.

If you want this baby to have a chance and you decide to sacrifice treatment for that child, that's your decision and should be respected.

If you're diagnosed and you're not pregnant, and you decide you would rather see out your final few months as well as you can be, and don't want to put yourself through aggressive and cruel treatment to prolong your existence (because it's no life) a short amount of time, leaving your children with their last memories of you so unwell from treatment, bald, and a shell of your former self, that is 100% your choice.

I lost a family member to cancer. They had chemo and radiation. Agreed to chemo but didn't want the radium. I was so hurt and shocked and angry he'd make that decision because I wanted him to get better and have a good shot of getting better. He went through with it because I was upset but that was NOT my choice to make. If I was ever ever ever ever in that position again, I would support 100% someone who told me they didn't want treatment.

This is an extremely personal and difficult decision to make for anyone, even worse when she was pregnant but ultimately she couldn't win whatever she decided and therefore she made the choice she felt was best for her family. Nobody needs to justify that.

flaneur · 23-09-2017 01:40PM

_Dara_ wrote: »

Where does this idea come from? Of course you can. And it's shite like the bolded bit that causes additional misery for terminal cancer patients, when they have people telling them to "think positive" and "don't give up" because "you never know!". Once a cancer hits a certain stage, the outcome is very clear in the case of many cancers. For example, 100% of metastatic breast cancer patients will die from the cancer in a relatively short amount of time unless something else gets them first. There is no oncologist out there that will them it is a survivable illness. They will told that any treatment they get will is just to prolong their life for a short while. I bring up breast cancer because many people seem to be under the impression that it's survivable at any stage. There absolutely can be generalisations made about many cancers though I'm not sure generalisation is the right term. Glioblastoma multiforme is one of the cancers that you can say someone will not live for very long with. Even for the outliers, it's a terminal illness. They are outliers in that they might get a longer period of life post diagnosis but they will still die from it. You say there might be brain tumour patients reading. Any cancer patient will have been clued in on their prognosis if their oncologist is any good. They won't be given an exact time frame but they will know if their illness is terminal or not.

I don't know where this idea comes from that you can't proclaim any cancer to be terminal, even if it is. It's strange.

Which is more or less what I said, if you’d actually read my post!!

Someone further up the thread said that *ALL* brain cancers are fatal. That is not the case. I was saying it depends very much on what type of cancer is involved, what the location is and a whole load of other factors.

Cancer is a generic description of a group of illnesses caused by uncontrolled cell multiplication. It is impossible to generalise about all cancers based simply on what part of the body they’re in.

All I was saying was that if you are going to make a statement about ‘brain cancer’ be aware of the fact that it is a group of quite a few different diseases that have completely different treatment options and prognosis. You could be talking about anything from a highly differentiated and easy to remove pituitary tumor vs a complex cancer that was entirely inoperable and incurable.

I happen to personally know 3 people who had ‘brain cancer’. One survived without any major complications. The other two died quite rapidly.

All I am saying is the term « brain cancer » is far too generic to make any kind of comment on whether or not it’s got a good or bad prognosis without proper information.

I actually went on to say that the woman had possibly weighed up the options and decided not to go with the ‘heroic medicine’ option of agressive treatment.

I know if I had certain cancers myself, I would want to know my options and certainly would not go for cluthing-at-straws treatments that would radically reduce my quality of life and with very low probability of a successful outcome.

You need to know the facts about where you stand with something like that so that you can make a proper decision and weigh up all your options.

I don’t agree with guilt tripping people into going through crazy treatment regimes if they don’t want to because « their family will miss them » or so on. Their family don’t have to go through the treatments and nobody should be in a situation where they’re being put through hell and back simply to keep a 3rd party happy or to satisfy somerone’s morals about preservation of life at all costs.

My own grandmother had very late stage terminal cancer, to the point that she lost one of her limbs due to spread and the amount of absolute guilt-tripping **** that was laid on her by the hospital about how she should keep trying to hang on in there was shocking. She was quite literally riddled with tumors and was unable to eat and they were still pushing the notion that she should try another and another harsher chemo regimen.

When she said she just wanted palliative care, they told her she was depressed and tried to get her to see a psychiatrist and put her on antidepressants !!

She more or less checked herself into a hospice. She wasn’t in anyway depressed, she was just extremely practical and prioritised her quality of life and knew when to call an end to treatment.

It looks like to me that the woman in this article just weighed up her options and decided how she was going to proceed. I don’t really think it’s anyone’s business to go judging her for that.

Someone further back up this thread even went on about how she could have had a few extra years with her kids. Yes, quite possibly while in agony, doped up to her eyeballs on pain meds, not being fully aware of where she was and probably not even necessarily in control of her own functions.

I don’t mean to be grim, but sometimes you just have to make the best of a situation and if other people are put out by that, that’s really their problem, not yours.

I just hope that she at least went out feeling that she had made a decision that *she* was happy with and that her kids and family remember her for who she was.

I don’t necessarily think this is a pro-life vs pro-choice case. It’s just a person making a decision about their own body.

Of course nobody should be expected to carry a child while terminally ill though.

I just think we risk analysing this very tragic case to the point of abstraction. The reality of it is that a woman made a decision about her own personal circumstances her own way.

That shouldn’t be something that a legal process gets into the middle of, as would be the case here in Ireland due to our crazy laws that seem to think they can legislate for extreme circumstances to appease the morals of the holier than thou brigade.

My major concern about the approach to this in Ireland and amongst the US far right is that they’ve a notion that you can or should legislate to prevent people from having control over their own bodies in what are complicated, personal circumstances that really just cannot be dealt with in the context of inflexible absolutes.

Whether you’re talking about abortion or end of life care for people who are very, very ill, I think there needs to be a hell of a lot more compassion and flexibility and a lot less guilt tripping people.

There’s an incrediable degree of arrogance to the kind of arguments put forward that just strip all the humanity out of a situation and try to paint it as if it were a simple right / wrong situation. If only being a human were that simple!

_Dara_ · 23-09-2017 05:02PM

flaneur wrote: »

Someone further up the thread said that *ALL* brain cancers are fatal. That is not the case. I was saying it depends very much on what type of cancer is involved, what the location is and a whole load of other factors.

Cancer is a generic description of a group of illnesses caused by uncontrolled cell multiplication. It is impossible to generalise about all cancers based simply on what part of the body they’re in.

All I was saying was that if you are going to make a statement about ‘brain cancer’ be aware of the fact that it is a group of quite a few different diseases that have completely different treatment options and prognosis. You could be talking about anything from a highly differentiated and easy to remove pituitary tumor vs a complex cancer that was entirely inoperable and incurable.

It was me and I said that almost all brain cancers are fatal. Almost all. You left that out. And that's true. Not all are fatal but most are. I'm well aware that there are different kinds. Most of them are fatal. And the type that the woman in the OP has is the most aggressive one. I was watching a Frontline documentary about cancer a while back. They interviewed a neuro-oncologist, the type of oncologist who specialises in treating brain tumours. Her words: "I don't get to tell people I'm going to cure them". And anyone reading this who has a brain tumour will be well-clued in on their chances by their oncologist. Disclosure: I'm an advanced cancer patient (not brain), I do have a unique perspective on this. We know well what we are facing.

You replied to my first post on the thread without reading it properly!

flaneur · 23-09-2017 05:17PM

All I was trying to say was that it’s a group of illnesses which range from having a 5 year survival rate of 23% to over 93% depending on a whole range of factors, particularly the type of cancer and location but also age, health, etc etc etc

I didn’t say it to offend or insult anyone. I will simply refrain from commenting on these kinds of threads in the future as I clearly have two left feet when it comes to issues like this. In fact, maybe the mod coils hair delete my posts.

I’m sorry to hear you’ve cancer yourself and I wish you all the best in dealing with it.

_Dara_ · 23-09-2017 05:37PM

flaneur wrote: »

All I was trying to say was that it’s a group of illnesses which range from having a 5 year survival rate of 23% to over 93% depending on a whole range of factors, particularly the type of cancer and location but also age, health, etc etc etc

I didn’t say it to offend or insult anyone. I will simply refrain from commenting on these kinds of threads in the future as I clearly have two left feet when it comes to issues like this. In fact, maybe the mod coils hair delete my posts.

I’m sorry to hear you’ve cancer yourself and I wish you all the best in dealing with it.

It's probably my own personal feelings coming out. I'm so fed up at being told to stay positive, that everything will be OK, that "you never know!". I do know so please fuck off.

One thing I will say is that five year survival statistics are misleading. Five year survival isn't absolute survival.

TheZenMonkey · 23-09-2017 06:51PM

_Dara_ wrote: »

I'm so fed up at being told to stay positive, that everything will be OK, that "you never know!". I do know so please fuck off.

Goes hand in hand with the "cancer as a battle" metaphor, which turns patients into soldiers. And soldiers are supposed to follow orders and not ask questions. The "be positive" thing also plays into blaming the victim: YOU DID NOT SMILE 24/7 THEREFORE YOU DESERVE DEATH.

Well, the most wonderful, positive person I've ever met died from cancer and one of the grimmest, most miserable men I've ever had the misfortune to know survived it.

The rhetoric around cancer can be nauseating and I'm sorry you've had to deal with it. I have MS and no one has ever told me "stay positive, it'll keep the brain and spinal lesions away" -- which is probably good because my cane is a nice thick piece of wood that would fit perfectly up that person's bum.

(Apologies for the digression.)

_Dara_ · 23-09-2017 07:00PM

TheZenMonkey wrote: »

Goes hand in hand with the "cancer as a battle" metaphor, which turns patients into soldiers. And soldiers are supposed to follow orders and not ask questions. The "be positive" thing also plays into blaming the victim: YOU DID NOT SMILE 24/7 THEREFORE YOU DESERVE DEATH.

Exactly, the whole "I beat cancer" thing, urgh! What, did all those people who have died from cancer just not fight hard enough, were they not positive enough? You laid back and took the treatment and it worked for you, that's it.

TheZenMonkey wrote: »

Well, the most wonderful, positive person I've ever met died from cancer and one of the grimmest, most miserable men I've ever had the misfortune to know survived it.

Ha, yes, so very true! I'm so sorry about the person you know who died.

TheZenMonkey wrote: »

The rhetoric around cancer can be nauseating and I'm sorry you've had to deal with it. I have MS and no one has ever told me "stay positive, it'll keep the brain and spinal lesions away" -- which is probably good because my cane is a nice thick piece of wood that would fit perfectly up that person's bum.

Exactly, I was actually going to make the same point about motor neurone disease earlier. (very different disease, I know) Nobody gives people suffering from that any guff about how they'll beat it.

People honestly do seem to think that cancer can be willed away. I guess it makes it less scary to people if they imagine that if they got it, they could beat it. I think that's what annoys me actually. People's reassurances are more about themselves than the sufferer.

Best of luck to you, MS is tough, my granny had it.

Leogirl · 23-09-2017 08:26PM

I had cancer while pregnant. Very aggressive too. I was told 6 months later and its be palliative care not a cure if i hadn't found it. I think id have chose my baby over my life but honestly I dont knoe if I'd be that selfless and brave. What a terrible choice ðŸ˜” i was lucky, i was due 2 weeks later. So they told me I had 6 weeks to recover then start chemo. Then they changed it, started chemo 3 weeks later. Tumour had doubled in size.

_Dara_ · 24-09-2017 12:09AM

Hope you're doing OK, Leogirl. x

flaneur · 24-09-2017 12:15AM

+1 I wish you all the best Leogirl! Hope you're doing ok too.

Chemotherapy and pregnancy - the dilemma.

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