Ethan
Money List Winner
Way back in early March a very dear friend was told that the various treatments and medicines had stopped working and that the tumours(metastisised) located throughout her body were growing again. The only option left to slow them down again was to have another course of chemo. All it would do was buy some more time. Without it she had 2 weeks to live.
And then along came lockdown. As was feared her chemo date was pushed back indefinitely, initially. Her chemo started in week 3. I have never known anyone be so ill, and in so many different ways. Chemo would be stopped, because she was so ill, and then restarted, then stopped, then restarted. During the next 6 months she also had numerous visits and stays in hospital, blood transfusions, drains etc. All those visits and stays were done alone.
Early Sept she was told her body couldn't take any more chemo and that all they could do was provide palliative care. I spoke to her, via Skype, in early October 5 days before she died. The images will haunt me for a long, long time.
Her ambition when she went through her first round of chemo mid 2019 was to see Christmas. And her ambition this year when she was offered chemo was to see Christmas this year. Did having the chemo pushed back 3 weeks mean she missed Christmas? Who knows, but when I see and hear people ignoring the lockdown rules, and giving all sorts of excuses I could quite literally take a base ball bat to them. If they won't do it for themselves there's plenty of people who need them to do it.
That sounds bad. It is very difficult to do the 'if only ...' thing in a situation like that. I doubt the 3 week delay made much of a difference. It sounds like she gave it a good fight but was always going to lose.
From a personal point of view, when my number is up and the ticket booked, I am not sure I want too many heroic treatments like chemo. I think for some people (not your friend, necessarily), end of life treatments prolong death rather then life. Each to their own, though.
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