@mtstack
Hi there, about chemo successes. I am not qualified to asses this. I know in the 2010's a relative died after 15 years with cancer of her right breast. I observed her cancer treatment and resulting other issues that came from that and, then more recently I observed the last three years of another's life with lung cancer and chemo.
When I at age 85 in 2022 was diagnosed with right beast cancer I decided I did not want surgery and the chemo follow up. That was four years ago. The tumor may have started 7-10 years earlier.
My doctor said I had the slowest growing cancer possible which of course pleased me. I still have the most difficult period ahead of me when it breaks through the skin. I am preparing for that in learning about the care I will need to take of that breast.
Like so many other women I have been through life struggles, rejection in childhood, a selfish chauvanistic husband who was a dysfunctional husband and father of our seven children. The many years after he left me handling a household and large family with a punitive income, not to mention a house fire that meant I was hospitalized for sometime and not able to look after me children for an entire year, then I faced five years of plastic surgery. , We had moved 20 times in 10 years so I had no community for support. My faith, and maybe sturdy farmer Scottish heritage showed me faith becomes hope so I lived one day at a time, it was a life saver as I look back.
I am a complex care patient with COD, AMD. partially deaf,
Parkinson's and Neuropathy but dealt with each as it came along. I have been at death's door three times and each time rescued thankfully by hard working smart medics.
Now in 2026 my Dr says he believes I will live to 95, I wonder about the cancer future but at the same time I remember I've been here before and my faith and hope to have a dignified life now leads me to think about a dignified death when that time comes.
I have no fear of death, am in the MAID program (my second choice) if the pain becomes too incredibly difficult. Being a realist I can put my life in order, send more love and forgiveness to my past and the people in it and look forward to the next chapter.
Let's love the smallest detail in our lives and forgive the most difficult.