I have first hand experience watching many of my family members die of cancer. I will not give medical advice professional or spiritually. I just want to share my experience with what I saw. My uncle whom I had no relationship with because he was an absolute deadbeat died of cancer.

He literally looked like pop eye the sailor man...His tumors grew so large and he underwent every type of chemo they would throw at him. It was very difficult to stomach. He was not a nice man but there was closure in the family...Remember...cartoon popeye face...big tumors chemo didn't work.

Grandmother number 1...she was a longtime smoker of 25 years she quit. She was also a heavy drinker for decades...She stopped that too. Then right as her retirement and life seemed good she got lung cancer. She endured countless rounds of radiation and chemo...Then they told her it wouldn't work.

She lived comfortably on oxygen for several more months...then became unconcious in homecare and died. She was a vegetable for 3 months.

My other grandmother was diagnosed with the rare form of cancer known as multiple myeloma. She lived for five years with it. During that time she once had a period of remission. During that time she was making her own form of Essiac tea from an herbal/natural botanical health store. I believe it was both the herbs and the power of her mind that helped this event happen.

Then she stopped taking the essiac. Her body went down quickly...She lost all mobility to her legs...Her last great hope was yet again more radiation...to "buy her more time"...The next two weeks she died a miserable slow and painful death of chemo toxicity.

Next victim...my grandfather. They cut his lung cancer out and deemed him to be cured. With half a lung later he could walk but his ability to walk like he used to was not possible. It was much more a labor and chore to simply move around. Later the cancer returned...He chose to get shots of procrit...35,000 per injection and they wanted to do 15...He also had a "chemo port"

The bottom line is he died...The moral of the story is that not one person survived longer than if they had not taken treatment.

My advice is to draw your own conclusions. If you or a loved one is diagnosed with cancer and they wish to begin treatment ask them for the actual clinical trial data. Do not simply ask for the crappy pie chart data...You tell them you want the full clinical report. If they are hesitant to give it you consider them fired. What would they have to lose by giving you the actual data?

As long as your practitioner is honest about treatment options you should be able to get all forms of printed data on drugs and treatment methods. In my grand fathers instance the data showed that those who did not take the drugs had 3 months less...

Is that 3 months with suffering or without suffering...read the side effects. Be vigilant and never feel like an idiot for asking a question. If anybody deserves to feel like an idiot it is your general practitioner for not being able to answer your question. They are the professional and you are a patient with the right to quit anytime...

If the oncologist can't back up improvements with any data why gamble with your quality of life?

Thanks for sharing ur thoughts I have been fighting liver cancer and I can tell u its hard but the only thing keeping me fighting is my wife and kids unconditional love and compassion. As soon as I have enough time and not on my phone trying to type a lot lol I will explain some of my situation as to hopefully help someone else. Thanks again

Ideally, I would live my life with some heavy doses of cannabis to help slow the progression of the disease, then when the cancer has stop progressing, chemo therapy to finish it off.

Durring which time I would live life to the fullest and try and accomplish some things I wanna do before death. Just in case. Cancer can be a tricky disease to control.

My Mother was recently diagnosed with lung cancer(non-smoker), before Thanksgiving, and only told friends now per her wishes to wait after the holidays.Family only told, but I do not know what stage yet.

I am at a loss to explain it, but feel very much better venting to my friends and receiving their support since I have now can talk openly with my friends. It has hurt myself much more to hold it in waiting,per her wishes.
What I can say, be blunt and terse. Do not hold anything back. Your Family and dear friends will be much more able to handle it, with first hand information and try to comprehend.

Thanks for sharing your story. I have seen a few perish from cancer as well, or should I say, they died horrible deaths from the treatment.

Chemotherapy and radiation destroy good cells as well as bad cells. It is well known that it destroys vital organs. The last person I knew who died while having cancer actually died from kidney failure from the chemo. At least, that's what it says on her death certificate. The colon cancer wasn't listed as even a secondary cause.

My husband's cousin was just diagnosed with leukemia and they plan to keep him in the hospital for a month to irradiate his bone marrow, to kill it, and then decide whether or not a bone marrow transplant is needed. He has crappy insurance so he is going heavily into debt in order to pay the million or so dollars this is going to cost, including mortgaging property and selling his farm equipment. After all this trouble, they only give his survival rate for the next year as 50/50, at best.

Most oncologists sell the chemo drugs and make a killing off it, pun fully intended. Of course they're going to push it. Somebody explain to me how radiation, a known killer, is somehow beneficial when a doctor administers it. Cancer treatments are still barbaric and behind the times.

Yeah, I know, some people swear by it, saying it saved their life. Yes, but for how long? And what did it destroy in the mean time? Remember Kennedy's daughter, who died last year from heart failure as she was leaving the gym. They said her heart muscle had been destroyed by the chemo for her brain tumor. The chemo bought her a little time at great cost, not a cure.

My husband and I have talked about it, and said that if either of us is diagnosed with cancer, we will not bankrupt the family with treatments that, at best, give you a few more painful years of life before the inevitable happens. We will try and fight it with natural means, and if we die, we die honorably and not heavily in debt.