I had a patient who was fighting cancer but ended up at the hospital for other reasons. She was a real spitfire of a person, a real fighter. I was happy to get the chance to talk to her and ask her a question that has been on my mind recently after my post about telling a patient a terminal diagnosis.
I got the chance to ask her about how she felt when getting the terminal diagnosis, what was really going through her head and how she reacted to the news. When telling me about how the first doctor she went to gave her 12 months to live, she explained to me about how angry that made her that somebody else put a time on the rest of her life. She felt he had no right to tell her that. She would have preferred he wouldn't have said anything at all about how long she had when telling her the news. Granted, I wasn't in the room the day when she was told that, and she may be looking back at the situation with a selective perspective. For all I know she could have been the one to ask "How long?" No matter how it happened, at this point in time she wishes the doctor would have never said anything.
I always thought people wanted to know the time they have left. I truly feel I would want some sort of estimate. But maybe some people really don't want to know and we are doing them a disservice by telling them.
4 comments:
I think a general range would be helpful.
Does anyone really know how long a person can fight a disease like cancer? Even with a terminal diagnosis, people have been known to hang on longer than anyone thought possible.
I think knowing their time is limited would help them to make the most of what they have left. Just my $.02. I've never been there.
Thank you for the comment. As far as knowing how long people have, we have stats as to how people generally do, but people as always are sometimes outliers.
My mother-in-law was given six months to live after her diagnosis of lung cancer.
Two and a half active and productive years later (she responded well to chemo), she finally did!
I don't believe the you-only-have-x- months approach.
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