Survivors who have used only alternative treatments
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here is another one.. the author wrote a book "What killed my Dad?" Are Hospitals Safe?
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No patient should ever tolerate a doctor who is rude,insensitive, and dismissive of your complaints and concerns. You should not tolerate a doctor who does not speak to you in comprehensible terms, or who routinely passes you off to his staff. Your doctor should also have a plan to diagnose and treat you. Remember, you are the client, and you have the right to "fire your doctor".0
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final chapters-- painful death -- peaceful death if injected with morphine.. is this what life extension is about ? is this the kind of life you want to live>
http://community.breastcancer.org/forum/8/topic/766966?page=3#idx_81
if the link does not work-- fo to th Stage IV forums and look for the entry entitled "The Final Chapters"
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nanay.. do you REALLY have to link the stage 4 forum for 'final chapters' when you continually argue against pursuing treatment conventionally? I mean REALLY? Are you just argumentative?
I have buried all four of my parents. A peaceful death is a gift. I am very fortunate that Hospice is available where I live. I embrace many natural means of fighting cancer. I am a coach, athlete, artist, musician, mother and wife. I still got cancer. I fight as hard as I can for these guys... their garage sale shoes underneath their garage sale uniforms in this darling pic which is 6 years old. They can almost fend for themselves altho they love me even more now.
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I brought up long term side effects because I think it is a rational thing to consider when deciding whether or not to pursue mainstream treatment. For some women, the side effects are not worth the benefits and that is such a personal decision that I respect.
But to twist yourself into pretzels to try to say that the treatments don't work, when the science on this is crystal clear, is what I mean by a fixed idea. The facts are there but you won't allow them to change your mantra that the treatments don't work.
There is a magical thinking element here -- "I don't care what the studies say, the alt treatments are more effective because I BELIEVE." Believe what you choose, but I'll follow the science.
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Ltot,
The RO was speaking in the context of a conversation about whether I choose radiation or not; not about all statistics in general. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
And he's right. Does the 90 out of 100 women in some trial relate to me when the only choices I have are yes and no? Not really. I might use the info to help make a decision, but then again, I might not. Ultimately I have to make it, regardless of how 90 out of 100 women faired. Make it and hope for the best.
Statistics are cold comfort.
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Unfortunately, there is also a magical thinking element everywhere else that says:
"......I don't care what the statistics are REALLY saying: let's throw medicine at everything that moves, something will end up working.....
And please! Let's not mess up the discussion on this forum by going telling "them" [our fellow patients] about the possibly devastating side-effects, or about the undeniably LOW benefit from most of these treatments.
Let's take every substance that's made available to us. It's the only way to go."
No, I don't think so. I say: Let's question those RELATIVE statistics. And then, let's question them even more....
Our oncologists all seem to agree on one thing {LOL} at least: surgery is what increases our survival the most (is it 80% benefit or so?). That is: even using their own statistics, without any interpretation.
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nanay wrote: "...thake for example, Shin, a Korean woman who really believed in conventional medicine,,, we all knew that she died not because of cancer but ebcause of an infection in her lungs.."
Nanay, I took a moment and read some of the blog about this lady you're referring to. Shortly before she died, she had a number of thoracentesis procedures to remove fluid from her lungs. She had a classic malignant pleural effusion with a chest tube placed to facilitate the removal of huge amounts of pleural fluid which continued to build up daily until she finally died.
The month prior, she herself mentioned that she thought the breathing problems she was having were due to the cancer in her lungs but that doctors initially put her on antibiotics because they had origionally assumed that her symptoms were due to a lung infection. That's the only reference to "infection" that I could find. She died from end stage metastatic breast cancer - not from a lung infection. The cancer DID kill her.
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In truth, there probably would be no research, no treatments at all if the medical community subscribed to the same "it's all about me" 50/50% mindset. Sure, of course, it's about each and every one of us. That has absolutely, positively not one single thing to do with treatment options.
We are talking about treatments here. This is not, "well, I'll take it, and I have a 50/50% chance of it being effective or not". That is grossly misleading.
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mariekelly
Jan 10, 2009, when she gave up Chemo Shin said
What does that mean anyway- fighting the good fight?. Does it mean persisting with every chemo drug available, battering the body's natural defenses until it just can't take it any more? Does it mean sacrificing quality time that could be spent with family in exchange for bragging rights that I "never gave up" and tried every chemo drug available, even if they left me dead while still alive.
and then more..
Stopping chemo does not mean i've given up . I'm now going to put all my efforts into researching alternative, natural ways to strengthen my liver and immune system,
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6 days after, this is what Shin posted..
Then it hit me suddenly.. and this was the really scary part.. this could be the END. I could actually end up dying from complications during this simple procedure and I'd never see Josie or Toby again. I'd never see my friend Michelle again. That's wne the terror of it hit me.
Thankfully, after what seemed like ages, the radiologis moved the tubing around a little bit (it was off by 3 cm too close to the sternum) and it started to feel better.
The mistake, in addition to the incorrect placement of the tubing, was in draining too much fluid too quickly. My oncologist said later, that we should have drained 500ml a day not 1,000 in one quick, fell swoop.
The suddent release of fluid shifted organs about and moved the heart, hence the tight feeling of suffocation on my sternum and chest.
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the next day , she said
Meanwhle, Im in terrible distress because Im having the worst breathing problems i've had so far and cant spend time with the kids for fear of having an anxiety attack that would scare them.
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exactly 9 days, after she thought she had complications and knowing all the errors made durign treatment a friend of Shin posted in her blog:
Shin's condition has worsened over the past few days. Her breathing is getting more difficult and ...her breathlessnes now has turned in to a feeling of suffocation....
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it was only a span of 9 days..after that complication and error in placement of tubings.. and draining too much fluid instead of only 500 ml..
she turned for the worse.. just a simple mistake as part of her conventional treatment.. has stolen her time with her kids..
is it not very sad? just when she decided quality of life over quantity THAT erroneous medical procedure-- ended her life!!
and she do not even have the strength to blame anyone.. her friend michelle and her husband due to the pain of seeing her in pain-- did not even blame the doctors at all!!
it was not the cancer that killed her! it was the medical procedures gone wrong that killed her!
and this is what you want every woman in this thread-- to risk themselves on??
this???
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this is all what the doctor have to say according to her friend and her husband:
The doctors say it is a combination of the disease, the medication and the lack of oxygen that are causing her to be a little "loopy" and fatigued. But she has had some fantastically lucid moments over the past few days that have made us laugh.
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caused her to be a little loopy and fatigued?? it caused her DEATH!!! it caused her premature death! she should have had quality time with her kids.. thats what I thought!
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you know what is the only beautiful thing that came out of this? her children, her husband, her best friend Michelle-- was so at peace to just let her go, let her die peacefully with morphin..
as they could see her physical pain. they want Shin to die at that moment because she was on severe pain...
severe painful death...if I am in Shin's bed, I would probably have chosen death as well than to see my love ones suffer because they see me in excruciating painful death.
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apple,
I love your kids-- as much as I love my own.. this is precisely the reason why you should be warry of erroneous medical procedures.. of insensitive doctors.. of quacks both in the conventional and alternative sense...
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Nanay I have no idea why you are quoting this woman's story at length. The woman had cancer throughout her body including her lungs. The cancer in her lungs caused a buildup of fluid that would have literally drowned her if they hadn't drained it. Her family believes they drained her too quickly and caused complications. That may be. But she was end-stage when this happened and she died from metastatic breast cancer. It sounds like her family regretted pursuing active treatment at that point and wished they could have said no to the draining and allowed her to die in peace. This is a very common and difficult situation. But you are misunderstanding it to represent some kind of failure of cancer treatment. That wasn't even what was going on, it was the draining of her lungs that was at issue.
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On Shin's 3rd year anniversary (BC diagnosis) -- a month before she died she wrote this:
1) I learned my cancer has spread to my lungs, liver, brain, bonese, soft tissue and lymph nodes
2) I had a lung biopsy that nearly killed me because I was mistakenly given more than twice the necessaryd oes of anesthetic during the procedure
3) I had brain seizures caused by tumors in my braid and had whole-brain radiation
4) I went through ten different chemo combinations
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10 chemo combinations in 3 years, including rads and Herceptin, Tykerb and Avastin
and in just 3 years the cancer spread to all her vital organs!!! what did herceptin to for her??if Herceptin actually did something for her..
she was mistakenly given twice the necessary does of anesthetic..
how many more mistakes can one tolerate until enough is enough?? until you ask for morphin???
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Given twice the dose of anesthesia -- this has nothing to do with cancer. It could happen when you have a tooth removed. These kinds of complications are much rarer in the US than they used to be becuase of an overhall of the way anesthesia is administered, but really it has nothing to do with cancer.
And it isn't unusual for women with metastatic cancer to have numerous courses of treatment. One fails and they move on to the next.
No question, treatment failed this woman, but it was the cancer that killed her.
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MOC,
3 years before her death.. there was no mestastis in any of her vital organs.. she is Her2 positive yes, just like my mother and WOM..
dont you think that all the exposures to radations actually caused the cancer to spread?? you mentioned several times that Herceptin can help Her2 positive agressive cancers..
look where it got Shin in to?
by the way, it seems you are up 24 hours a day.. are you part of breastcancer.org?
just asking.
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MOC,
of course overdose of anesthesia has got nothing to do with cancer.. my god! what are you saying??
what I am saying is, obviously there were medical procedures that were not properly executed..
and it is not because of Singapore hospitals being ill equipped.. you just have to come here and see how advanced they are in terms of equipmetns..
it was the possibility that one wrongly executed medical procedure can cause your premature death..
and let us say she really died because of cancer-- then how does it correlate with your promotion of Herceptin as a life saver for Her2 positive BC women??
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what am trying to get at is though I am still not giving up on Herceptin (the possibility that it could help my mother and that she would agree to take it).. I would wary of doctors who are incompetent.. in the same way that I would be wary of quacks..
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I have never written that any treatment works for all women. No one has said that. Herceptin has improved survival for women with her2+ bc by 50 %, not 100%.
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you are contradictign yourself MOC, at one point you said--
" But you are misunderstanding it to represent some kind of failure of cancer treatment. That wasn't even what was going on, it was the draining of her lungs that was at issue"
then you said:
"the treatments failed this woman, but the cancer killed her."
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whether it was failure of treatment, cancer, wrongly executed medical procedures..
she still died in the hands of conventional medical care team.. whether you are claiming-- 50% or 100% survival rates on Herceptin.
those stats, will not be as powerful as Shin's story-- she is a brilliant, honest woman.. and though we are choosing alternative-- I respected her decision and forever grateful for her passionate account of her disease, her treatments, her belief/unbelief in God, including her frustration/dissappointment in the medical establishment as well as her account of finally giving the alternative world a chance (though it was too late)--in favor of quality of life-- its just a shame that she made that decision a few days before she died..
she was painfully honest to the core..
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its almost 10pm, I need my rest! good night MOC and have a restful day.
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