Choices

I've been writing a lot over the past couple of days.  I'm writing, rewriting, editing, and writing again, and I'm still having trouble sorting out my thoughts here.

I read the other day about a woman who died of breast cancer.  Or, I should say, another woman who died of breast cancer.  Unlike most women, this particular person didn't use tested medical interventions after surgery.  Her cancer was stage III and also HER2+, so it was fast moving and had already gone to the lymph nodes before her surgery.  She chose to forgo chemo, Herceptin, radiation, hormone therapy in favor of "alternative therapies."

She was a total stranger who had been a regular poster on a cancer forum.  It was in one of her threads back when I was first diagnosed that I first heard of people willingly choosing to do something besides standard treatment.

To be completely honest, when I read her post a year and a half ago I was astonished.  I was only more astonished to read on and see that there were a number of people cheering her on.  I had no idea there were people who believed chemo was more dangerous than cancer.

Later I discovered there is actually a big industry of alternative providers, herb supplement makers and sellers, naturopaths, and people with little or no health background telling people how to save their own lives, usually basing their advice solely on their own thoughts about their illness and nothing more.  There's even some redneck kid who had surgery for his cancer but "knows" it was his healthy eating and multiple supplements that cured him.  Not sure how to be just like him?  No fear, he'll be happy coach you on his method for a low, low price of just $100 an hour or 2 hours for $175 (I wish I was making this up).

I speak of this in general terms, but to be clear, I have no idea who she turned to for treatment and advice or which of the 1000's of alternative options she tried.

A death brings out a lot of emotion and opinions, even in a internet forum.  People discussing the role the treatment choices made.  People who are making similar choices defend those choices, sometimes criticizing people who wonder because, supposedly, you're not allowed to wonder about choices if someone has passed away.

For the record, I disagree that talking about the choices when someone's died is inherently wrong or disrespectful.  I've been thinking about this and why I feel that way.  I think it's because, to me not talking about choices because of death seems like it tries to deny the humanity involved in that life.  We all make good and bad choices because we're human.  To deny that is to deny the truth about being human in this world.  Although of course there is a time and a place.

I'm struggling with that time and place thing.  I would never post these thoughts on the forum she frequented, nor would I engage her family and friends in a discussion about it.  But ever since I read her post about her path I've been thinking about alternative cancer treatment and people who choose it, and I'm thinking a lot about her in particular and all the issues surrounding this.  I think my own blog is a reasonable place to put down a little bit about what I'm thinking and feeling.  I hope so. 

As I go about my day, making supper, baking muffins, talking to my daughter about today's practice and what's left of her homework, I'm also thinking about the choices we each make every day.  Some we know are momentous--getting married, having children, buying a house.  Some are minor--beans or broccoli?  the black sweater or the green blouse?  Some are clearly and obviously disastrous--driving drunk, armed robbery, beating your children.  And many more choices are in that uncharted area between good and bad, choices that may be far more momentous than you could ever know at the time.  Or may not be.  These are the choices that could put you in the path of a speeding car or cause you to walk down a street and meet your future husband.  Or allow you to brush your hand against a lump in your breast you didn't realize you had.

I wonder which kind of choice her treatment decisions seemed like at the time.   In her posts she was adamant and vocal about the wisdom of her choices, certain that she had done her research and understood more than the doubters, that she was on to something ahead of the curve.  I assume those posts reflected her true feelings, but life is complicated and people are, too.

I hope she maintained that belief through to the end.  Leaving this world early is tragic, and with regrets would be only more so.  I am praying for her family and friends and wishing her joy in the hereafter.  And, like this fallen sister, I'm fervently wishing and hoping for an end to cancer.

I feel like I've only barely begun to sort out my thoughts on this.  I don't know if I'll post more on this later or not.  But I'm certain it will be on my mind for a long time.