In battle.
Is cancer a bad way to die?
- Thread starter KennyJC
- Start date
actually goats in a slaughterhouse pen die in practically the same fashion - can't say the sight ever filled me with envy ....
Dying in Montana would be just awful.
with women goats of course
Just because they will do it on a plane, on a train.
here or there or anywhere.
doesn't mean they are completely bereft of discrimination
Dying of cancer would be pretty nasty. I'd be more frightened of being burned to death, though.
I really wouldn't care, after all I'm dead!
Another thing some people like that kind of stuff as well.Alot of people referencing their relatives who died of cancer are describing the side affects of radiation/chemotherapy.
There's absolutely no denying that if you're dieing of cancer and you try to cheat and prolong your life with chemotherapy/radiation you suffer horribly for a long time.
While straight cancer isn't pleasant, it isn't quite so horribly prolonged and nauseating if you just take it on the chin and let it do what it wants to do.
The body has ways of dealing with a natural death that minimise the suffering.
If you get an aggressive cancer it's best to just let it get you, try to stay healthy and exercise and you will get a few quality weeks before you decline rapidly and die.
Get chemotherapy and you will get way too many horrible weeks of unusual and unnatural torture before you die.
There's absolutely no denying that if you're dieing of cancer and you try to cheat and prolong your life with chemotherapy/radiation you suffer horribly for a long time.
While straight cancer isn't pleasant, it isn't quite so horribly prolonged and nauseating if you just take it on the chin and let it do what it wants to do.
The body has ways of dealing with a natural death that minimise the suffering.
If you get an aggressive cancer it's best to just let it get you, try to stay healthy and exercise and you will get a few quality weeks before you decline rapidly and die.
Get chemotherapy and you will get way too many horrible weeks of unusual and unnatural torture before you die.
Dr i would like to contradict you
As part of my degree we did a shift with a palitive care nurse from RDNS (royal district nursing service). ALL of these people were reciving NO treatment other than pain management. I saw one poor guy who had a tumor in the side of his head. His skull had melted and there was a gaping wound into the side of his head. He was in IMENSE amounts of pain constantly. His treatment other than basic wound care was a permident morphine drip because the pain was so imence. Besides this his house was apaling because he couldnt care for it. The place stank and nothing was done, not even sure if he could eat.
As for how bad chemo is my mother had breast cancer, yes she lost her hair and her breast was removed. The recovery from the reconstructive surgury was imencly painful BUT she is still alive and at the end of this year assuming nothing grows back will be concidered cured. I am glad that she put up with the chemo because we still have her with us and more importantly so does dad.
As part of my degree we did a shift with a palitive care nurse from RDNS (royal district nursing service). ALL of these people were reciving NO treatment other than pain management. I saw one poor guy who had a tumor in the side of his head. His skull had melted and there was a gaping wound into the side of his head. He was in IMENSE amounts of pain constantly. His treatment other than basic wound care was a permident morphine drip because the pain was so imence. Besides this his house was apaling because he couldnt care for it. The place stank and nothing was done, not even sure if he could eat.
As for how bad chemo is my mother had breast cancer, yes she lost her hair and her breast was removed. The recovery from the reconstructive surgury was imencly painful BUT she is still alive and at the end of this year assuming nothing grows back will be concidered cured. I am glad that she put up with the chemo because we still have her with us and more importantly so does dad.
Nonsense and piffle.
Cancer itself can cause significant pain and discomfort (depending on the type and location) through a variety of mechanisms:
- Physical – tumors press against and distort other organs and tissues causing pain and affecting the ability of those organs to function properly. Direct pressure on nerves can cause significant pain. Pressure from brain tumors can cause all sorts of terrible neurological problems.
- Endocrine – cancerous cells can inappropriately release hormones and other signalling molecules that disrupt metabolism and tissue homeostasis.
- Immune – cancer patients are often immunocompromised as the cancerous cells reduce the ability of the immune system to function normally. Obviously this results in numerous secondary infections. Chemotherpay further immunocompromises the patient.
- Vascular – cancers can affect the functioning of blood vessels and lymph glands resulting in vascular problems.
Cancer treatments like chemotherapy adds further discomfort on top of this.
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It's one of the worst ways to go. I watched two family members get destroyed by cancer and the treatment. Ones insides were literally eaten away and the other suffocated from inflamed tissue due to steroid withdrawl. Both suffered alot of pain.
I vote for the heart attack. Nice and fast.
Hercules:
I don't think Lou Natic was claiming otherwise. He simply pointed out that the suffering is prolonged if you go through frivilous bouts of radio/chemotherapy and surgery in the hope of being 'cured'. I've known of several patients who just stopped chemotherapy because it was getting them nowhere, and significantly decreasing their quality of life for no real benefit (if you're terminal, you're terminal).
A quick horrible death is preferable to a prolonged horrible death.
I don't think Lou Natic was claiming otherwise. He simply pointed out that the suffering is prolonged if you go through frivilous bouts of radio/chemotherapy and surgery in the hope of being 'cured'. I've known of several patients who just stopped chemotherapy because it was getting them nowhere, and significantly decreasing their quality of life for no real benefit (if you're terminal, you're terminal).
A quick horrible death is preferable to a prolonged horrible death.
Eth in Asia? Who the hell is 'Eth'?
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
I agree with the consensus, and at 64 I'm old enough to have given this matter some thought.
One of the things that many people in my age group lament is that medical science has developed many ways to save heart patients, so that we're all much more likely to die of cancer.
Heart attacks used to be quick and final. There was no such thing as CPR. Sure, there is some pain, but the throngs of people who have survived them lately describe it more often as "serious discomfort." And life after a heart attack is a life of reduced quality. They can't reverse the underlying causes. They can replace some cardiac arteries (which is extremely unpleasant) but they can't totally prevent them from getting re-clogged with plaque. Heart patients spend the rest of their lives giving up things they love like rich foods, drugs and a TV-centric lifestyle, or they don't do that and they spend the rest of their lives wondering when they'll have another. Or both!
Many people go back in for heart surgery a second time, already knowing how awful recovery was the first time. Artificial hearts are even worse, they have to be replaced every ten years.
If you have a true "heart attack" that stops your heartbeat they can often revive you; even many laymen can perform CPR. But if your brain has been deprived of fresh oxygen for more than a large fraction of a minute, you may very well suffer a degradation of your cognitive abilities. Who among us intellectually-oriented members of SciForums would want that life?
If I have a heart attack they're not going to find me with my phone in my hand, frantically trying to call 911.
Cancer, on the other hand, is never a comfortable, merciful death, as many previous posts have attested. It rarely kills quickly. The shortest elapsed time between diagnosis and death that I've ever heard of from a surviving family member was three months. The last couple of weeks, as it metastasizes to other parts of the body, can be excruciating, and the state of the art in painkillers is often not up to the challenge.
One of the things that many people in my age group lament is that medical science has developed many ways to save heart patients, so that we're all much more likely to die of cancer.
Heart attacks used to be quick and final. There was no such thing as CPR. Sure, there is some pain, but the throngs of people who have survived them lately describe it more often as "serious discomfort." And life after a heart attack is a life of reduced quality. They can't reverse the underlying causes. They can replace some cardiac arteries (which is extremely unpleasant) but they can't totally prevent them from getting re-clogged with plaque. Heart patients spend the rest of their lives giving up things they love like rich foods, drugs and a TV-centric lifestyle, or they don't do that and they spend the rest of their lives wondering when they'll have another. Or both!
Many people go back in for heart surgery a second time, already knowing how awful recovery was the first time. Artificial hearts are even worse, they have to be replaced every ten years.
If you have a true "heart attack" that stops your heartbeat they can often revive you; even many laymen can perform CPR. But if your brain has been deprived of fresh oxygen for more than a large fraction of a minute, you may very well suffer a degradation of your cognitive abilities. Who among us intellectually-oriented members of SciForums would want that life?
If I have a heart attack they're not going to find me with my phone in my hand, frantically trying to call 911.
Cancer, on the other hand, is never a comfortable, merciful death, as many previous posts have attested. It rarely kills quickly. The shortest elapsed time between diagnosis and death that I've ever heard of from a surviving family member was three months. The last couple of weeks, as it metastasizes to other parts of the body, can be excruciating, and the state of the art in painkillers is often not up to the challenge.