kumquat
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
I don't think I ever read this thread. It does ring a very loud bell. One of our best friends died of cancer a couple of years ago. She was a doctor (GP). After diagnosis, she did the usuall things: surgery, radiation and then chemo (or chemo then radiation). Then one night we were invited to their house, they also invited another 4 friends. We had a nice supper and then she told us "nothing is working, treatments have stopped, nature will take its course". She lasted 2 months at home and 3 in palliative care (yes, that was free up here).This discussion is drifting into the topic that had great discussion in this thread:
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f38/why-doctors-die-differently-60257.html
The articles in the first and second post are great discussions on the extremely tough topic of quality of life vs quantity of life when dealing with terminal or very likely terminal illnesses.
After the funeral, her sister, an oncolologist, told me that she (the sister) could have and might have had to give her a couple of extra months of agony. She told me a morbid (but with underlying truth) joke.
Why do coffins have nails?
To stop the oncologists from doing more chemo.