Have you heard of the show ‘Breaking Bad“? It’s brilliant.
The show really breaks the norm, it’s edgy and funny – but it’s not a comedy. The humour is dark…the show is quiet, but violent.
Anyway, the premise is about this family man (the Dad from Malcolm in the Middle), a high school chemistry teacher. Everything about him seems typical, except that in the first episode you get a fleeting glimpse of his Nobel Prize award and he finds out he has terminal lung cancer. So, this typical family man decides to cook meth (a seriously addictive and profitable street drug) to make money to leave to his family (he is a brilliant chemist, so his product is off the charts).
Of course, there is a crazy series of events that leads him to this decision, all of which occurs within the first episode. I highly recommend you watch it.
(caution: minor spoiler alert)
In one of the later episodes, when his family finally finds out about his cancer (not about the meth), there is a big argument around his refusal for treatment. This scene has got to be one of the most powerful, as his family stages an ‘intervention’ to try and convince him to get treatment. Each person (wife, son, in-laws) goes through their reasons…and each person is very convincing.
But I didn’t have to even hear what Walt (the Dad) had to say to understand why he’s saying no.
Would it surprise you to know that “in most cases, chemotherapy is remarkably ineffective”?
The quote is from the book, Superfreakonomics, which I highly recommend you read. It’s a book about economics from a non-economic view. It has small portion that talks about the economics of hospitals and a portion of that dedicated to chemotherapy. In this portion they say,
“An exhaustive analysis of cancer treatment in the United States and Australia shows that the five-year survival rate for all patients was about 63 percent but that chemo contributed to barely 2 percent to this result.”
The authors even specifically talk about lung cancer, which is the most fatal cancer…
“A typical treatment for non-small cell lung cancer costs more than $40,000 but helps extends a patient’s life by an average of just 2 months.”
Knowing this, and the pain and suffering that chemo causes, I am surprised that more people don’t turn it down.
If you know me, or have been reading my blog regularly, you’ll know that I’m speaking from experience. My Dad was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 2008, it was so far advanced that chemo wasn’t even an option for him.
He was, however, exposed to radiation on his brain. This was to keep the tumours from swelling and causing even bigger problems (such as seizures, strokes etc). Unfortunately, the radiation had a terrible affect on him, and he suffered from practically every side effect possible. It’s hard to tell what was caused by the radiation, what was from the pain meds or just from the cancer.
Honestly, I sometimes wonder if he would have been better off if he just refused everything.
I don’t think that too often, because it really does no good to think about the “what-ifs”. I also understand that if it wasn’t those problems he would have experienced other issues, perhaps some even worse.
One thing I am certain of is that these choices have to be made by the person going through it. They can’t be forced on them or guilted into them. If someone refuses chemo (or any treatment) it’s their choice. It’s their body. It’s their life. Yes, their choices will have an affect on the ones around them, but we can’t force our opinions on anyone.
I truly believe it’s about quality of life, not quantity. And while my Dad’s life was cut short for the people left behind, the quality of what he lived was nothing short of amazing. There is no shame or disappointment in the life he created and the legacy he left behind.
It just sucks for the rest of us, the legacy he left behind.
