Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A friend of mine took this approach. She’s dead now.

+1

I had a good friend who began chemo after her breast cancer was discovered. She was so sick from chemo, and she began "researching" alternatives online. She eventually decided to go ahead with some kind of CBD oil treatment endorsed by an online quack, halting her chemo.

It didn't work. By the time her devastated husband could persuade her to go to a real doctor, the cancer had metastasized to the bone and lungs. Her final months were terrible. She died.

She most likely would be alive today if she had kept up with the conventional treatment plan.

I think it should be criminal for people to endorse these stupid "homeopathic"/spiritual alternative treatments. I think that people who are desperate and scared after a diagnosis are not of sound mind, and it isn't fair to allow these crazies to spread their dangerous ideas in that way.

Amanda Lewis is an idiot and she should stfu in case she is influencing somebody vulnerable somewhere.

It sounds like your friend made an informed decision based on the quality of her life while getting chemo. And she went back to chemo to make other people happy. And I think it’s easy to be pressured into pursuing other treatments for the sake of others, but it’s also okay for a patient to make treatment decisions that center them and their needs first. And that may leave their friends and families with a lot of feelings, but it’s sad to think those friends and family pressure them to center their needs first.

I was shocked in listening to Ananda talk about avoiding more intense treatment and thought it was definitely not the choice that I would have made. But then I was reminded that’s not exactly true - I personally went through menopause very early, in my mid-30s and the impact of having so little estrogen was so bad on every aspect of my life that I decided I want an estrogen patch until I die. And if I ever found myself having to choose between estrogen and having/feeding breast cancer or giving up estrogen in order to decrease my chances of having or growing existing breast cancer, I was absolutely going to choose the estrogen. Because the symptoms I had were so bleak in menopause that living longer with those symptoms would be a worse outcome than dying younger.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A surprising number of people ignore lumps until they progress into advanced stages of cancer. I had breast cancer and was in BC groups and I was shocked how common "magical thinking" was. It's basically a sophisticated form of denial. People have all kinds of reasons- chemotherapy and radiation are themselves very harmful (true, yet, less likely to kill you than cancer), they are willing to roll the dice by going lumpectomy without radiation, they dont think they really need endocrine therapy, etc. Its all incredibly common thinking.

I often ignore lumps. I have lumpy breasts and its difficult to get appointments and you get exhausted fighting/begging for help. (military insurance)

If I got breast cancer or any cancer, I'm not sure I'd fight it. I have other health issues and I'm not sure I can handle more.

Do you have kids?