why do cancer patients refuse chemotherapy?!
Question:
why would a person not fight to live?
Answers:
CANCER IS NOT A AILMENT, IT IS A PROCESS! Over a lifetime, billions upon billions of cells are produced, die or are killed off by our immune systems. Whether or not you develop cancer depends on your genetic succeptabilty to deviation of normal cell growth and your environmental exposure to carcinogens!
Current allopathic cancer treatements are carcinogenic in and of themselves. Research Rene Caisse (a Canadian Nurse's research and Essiac).
Now to your question . many cancer patients subconsciously recognize that they are unwilling to fight, or understand that their health is beyond repair.
For those who are young or middle-aged, we should help them fight the good fight whenever possible. For the very aged, it is their fight, to decide to battle or not.
In the determination; it is essential to seek the advice of both western and eastern doctors, and honestly assess the probability of defeating the spread of cancer.
With regard to the terminally ill, who do not desire to battle the 'cancer beast', well if they're of sound mind, it should be their decision, not ours!
Wholistic Health alternatives offer AMAZING ALTERNATIVES to chemo and radiation. But, the decision, ultimately, must lie to the patient.
Although it is beyond heart-wrenching to lose a loved-one, we must honor their wishes.
One last VERY IMPORTANT NOTE - put your wishes in writing, so that you don't end up like Terri Schiavo.
Other Answers:
because with chemo, it can make you very very sick and you could hurt and be in more pain. sometimes it just isn't worth it. it all depends on the individual and where they are in life. if i were old, like 80, i would not want to fight cancer. now, me being 27 and if i had cancer i would definitely want to try to fight it.
b/c if they know they're going to die, they'd rather enjoy the end of their lives than spend it being nauseous and fatiqued. i had chemo once, and it was quite unpleasant.
who knows ask them
i can tell you from experience--a lot of cancer patients who are terminal do not want the sickness that is involved with chemo. its not a question of fighting to live. once cancer reaches a certain stage, chemo will only extend life by a couple of months. and those months are filled with unbearable pain.
Why did Japan fall out of World War Two? Nuclear radiation has this common effect of inciting more death and sickness.
Chemotherapy seems to be a cousin thought of back in the days when they used to treat sicknesses by deliberately causing patients to bleed x amount of pints of blood.
This method of "treatment" is grotesque in that it is designed to kill the cells that have been ridden with cancer, while trying not to kill the rest of the cells that keep you alive.
But how do you differentiate between one cell and another cell when the only difference, truly, is that one cell has lost it's order and the other cell hasn't? It's still a cell that is surviving off of the same energy as every other cell.
You see, cancer develops.you don't catch it. So you can't really target it with such a moderately controlled method of treatment.
I believe that your thought of this whole situation may be a bit mislead. NOT acquiescing to voluntary radiation IS a fight to live.
There are many other ways to treat the disorganizations of the body, for many of them are caused by the entrance of unnatural things. I mean, if everything on the earth formed from the same amoeba.how could we be so incompatible as to cause a horrid condition such as cancer?
Live natural! Eat organic.
Hope that helps.
Source(s):
Personal research.
Gen makes some really good points.
Lots of people believe that cancer growth can be stopped by eating the right foods too. There is at least one plant, Vinca rosea (Madagascar Periwinkle) that is used to manufacter anti-cancer drugs.
New research into foods like Purple Corn, has already been shown to reverse tumor growth in rats, due to the high antioxidant level provided by a substance called anthocyanin (which is even found in common foods like blueberries)
Cancer is not one disease, cancer refers to an overgrowth of cells, that can be fast or slow, benign or malignant. With a slow growing, benign cancer, in some cases chemo would cause more problems than the cancer.
It's definately linked to quality of life too :)
Source(s):
Chevallier, A. (1996). The Encyclopedia of medicinal
plants: A practical reference guide to more than 550
key medicinal plants & their uses. (First ed.). New
York: Dorling Kindersley.
Jones, K. (2005). The Potential health benefits of purple corn. Herbalgram (65), 46-49
Chemo is brutal. your cells stop replicating to kill the cancer cells but it kills the good and bad, it leaves you susceptible to illness and infection. it makes you sick, it makes your hair fall out, your tongue can crack open your stomach lining your toenails don't grow back, There is a lot they can do to make the meds less abusive to the body however when it it just life prolonging and no hope of cure many people would rather enjoy the little time they have left than be so ill they cannot function. On chemo food tastes nasty the light can hurt your eyes you might be sensitive to loud noises, motion etc it depends of course on the drugs and the person but it can be the most miserable time. I guess some people would rather have the end days be more useful to them and more pleasant, and to keep what little dignity they can.
Is this a hypothetical question or are you asking in reference to someone you know? If it is the later case, I am sorry and I encourage you to find someone you can talk with about it.
I think people make those decisions based on a variety of factors. I suspect they fall into three or more broad groups.
For some cancers, chemo is not the suggested mainstream treatment approach. For example, it might be surgery plus radiation. Or just plain surgery.
Others believe that they can better treated with alternative methods that are not mainstream.
For the most part, I think people who decline chemo do it as result of a risk/reward analysis. Four questions: a) What will my quality of life be like with chemo?; b) How long will I live with chemo?; c) What is my quality of life like without chemo? d) how long will I live without chem?
Make no mistake, chemo is a very harsh treatment with many potential side effects. Everything from reduced mental acuity, to hair loss to fatigue to increased risk of infection to nausea and vomiting and many more. In many cases, it can improve the quality and/or length of life. But not in all.
If you were faced with a serious cancer, what would you decide? Would it matter if you were 25 with young kids instead of 80? Would it matter if studies showed patients with your illness survived an extra two months with six months chemo compared to those without chemo? Would you trade six pretty good months for eight months with a lesser quality of life? What if the cure rate was 95% and the treatment was well tolerated? How about if it was less than 5% and it was poorly tolerated? What if the cure rate without chemo was 90%, with chemo it is 95% but 3% die from the treatment?
In the end, how one chooses to deal with their own mortality and treatment is a complex balancing act. Factors often include personal values, how well they think they will tolerate treatment, how effective they think treatment will be and their personal life situation.
My dad had secondary liver cancer -- it was clear what was going to kill him and that it would do within a fairly short period of time (best case was two to three years if he got treatment and the treatment helped; less than a year if that was not the case). He elected to get chemo as long as the doctor felt the benefits exceeded the costs. He made the right decision for him.
While I doubt I would have taken chemo as long as he did, I know two things: a) it was right for him; and b) I don't think anyone really knows what they will do until they are in the situation.
Chemotherapy is designed to stop the replication of cells, so cells with a short life cycle can not reproduce. Cancer cells replicate fast, so chemotherapy stops them. Hair cells also reproduce very fast, and that is why you hair falls out when undergoing chemo.
Chemotherapy can have many side-effects, such as vomiting, nausea, fatigue, weakness, weakening of the immune system etc.
But chemo drugs have evolved dramatically in the last 10 years, and now chemo treatment is much easier on the body. Some people don't even lose their hair anymore!
The reason cancer patients refuse chemo is often because they are scared of what the treatment can do to them, or even because they can't afford it.
Often, patients are too tired to fight. In older patients, the long-term results are often not worth the fight.
Whatever cancer patients decide, we must support their choice and respect their decision. Doctors must ease the side-effects of cancer eg. pain relief, etc.
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