Put this on your holiday to-do list: discuss with your family when you want to the doctors to give up.
I know that doesn't sound fun, and I know the holidays seem like the wrong time, but there's never a right time. Do it now.
I just went through the cancer-to-hospital-to-hospice transition this fall with my mom, and I am immensely grateful that we had all talked about what we wanted. And then put it in writing, with a living will and a durable power of attorney.
At some point a team of doctors may turn to the person you love best and say "What should we do?" Don't make them guess.
...or this holiday season ask yourself if there's anything more you can help to do to solve this problem. Give money, research, tools, engineering, etc. The War on Cancer started in 1971. 40 years later we should not be reading these types of stories. There are a lot of smart people who read HN. I saw this TED talk last week. There's a lot of inspirational research going on.
I entirely support more cancer research, but I wouldn't want people to be disappointed in our progress so far. There will never be a single cure for cancer, because "cancer" isn't a single kind of thing:
Great strides have been made. E.g., one friend with leukemia just takes a daily pill. 40 years ago we would have buried him by now, but since he got cancer he's taken up doing triathlons. Go science!
Yes, I understand cancers is plural and there won't be a single cure.. It's not have far we've come, it's how far we have to go. Easy early detection would really help more people. We need to solve a lot of problems, which gets back to my original request. A lot of really smart HN'ers looking for problems to solve.
I know that doesn't sound fun, and I know the holidays seem like the wrong time, but there's never a right time. Do it now.
I just went through the cancer-to-hospital-to-hospice transition this fall with my mom, and I am immensely grateful that we had all talked about what we wanted. And then put it in writing, with a living will and a durable power of attorney.
At some point a team of doctors may turn to the person you love best and say "What should we do?" Don't make them guess.