Mom Told she has 2 years to live

Songflower said:

my Oncologist......
My oncologist says no one can tell you how long you have to live. There are many drugs yet, plaltinum with gemzar, topotecan, and I have now heard of VP-16 which is a daily pill. My father was given two years and lived five. It's hard not to dwell on time. I remember how Linda focused on living and not dying. I agree a new oncologist may be the best thing now. Love you, Diane

evertheoptimist said:

I completely agree with the
I completely agree with the replies here: nobody knows how long we have left. There are multiple potential scenarios that will dictate various positive outcomes that will put her life expectancy at several times that of what the doctor said.

That said, let's not pile on the doctor. He was after all ASKED by the patient to provide an HONEST answer. So he gave his best guess based on his experience and knowledge. You can disagree with his assessment, but calling him an idiot for doing what he was AKSED do to by the patient is way out of bound.

You can easily imagine an opposite scenario. The patient was looking for an honest input, and the doctor made up an answer that will make the patient happy (like, 20 years!), and as a result the patient failed to do what's necessary (I will leave it to your imagination - suffice to say, I have a friend who wished the doctor gave his HONEST input regarding her father's condition). In such a case, the doctor did not do any favor for the patient or the family. If you don't want an honest answer, do not ask.

Medical professionals do not get it right all the time, but they work hard to save their patients. They don't deserve to be vilified when they responded to the request of the patient. Of course, when the doctor is cavalierly mouthing off scary numbers based on ill considered data when the patient is not even asking for it, s/he deserves to be criticized, but this case does not fall into this category.

One thing I would like to maintain as my survival tool is a measure of objectivity and rationality throughout all this. My foe is formidable. I need to handle this with all of my intellect intact - as much as possible so that I can make most efficacious decisions based on best odds derived from accurate information.

I am sorry if I sound like such a cold hearted b**ch. I apologize for sounding preachy. However, over the year, I noticed how our desperation sometime make us latch onto irrational beliefs that in the end have a detrimental cumulative effect on the outcome.

We can be hopeful, optimistic, and positive while maintaining our rationality.

I have a stage 4B DX (UPSC - if OVCA, it will be 3C: ambiguous origin), and I am going through a recurrence treatment after a remission that lasted less than four month. I am optimistic and positive, and I would like my optimism based on reasoned objectivity.

evertheoptimist said:

so, if a physician, or for
so, if a physician, or for that matter any professionals with years of training in their field, was asked to give an honest input, should s/he ALWAYS say, "no way to tell since there is no such thing as 100% correct answer".

If so, there is no point in asking any question to any professionals regardless of their expertise and experience since NOTHING is 100% certain in this world.

We are asking THEM these questions precisely because of their expertise and experience through years and years of honing their skills and knowledge in a hope to get an answer that has a good validity.

If you are making an investment decision, and asked the financial advisor the odds of success, would you be happier if you got the answer "I can't tell since nothing is 100% certain" Or, would you be better off if he said "95%" success when his "honest" opinion based on his experience and understanding of the market put the odds at 50%?

If I ask my doctor a very pointed question, i expect him to give his best opinion honestly, rather than condescend to me by giving an answer that he thinks will make me happier. I am not a child. I am counting on him to share his expertise and knowledge so that I can make a better decision based on better vetted data.

In the end, it's our intellect that will allow us to chart a better course of action and increase our odds of survival. One thing I learned through this while journey is this: treatment decisions for recurrent advanced UPSC or OVCA are much more of an art than science. Even among the very best practitioners, we are finding a lot of variances. Not all doctors are correct all the time. There is a tremendous room for informed patients advocating themselves with facts, knowledge, objectivity, and reason to affect the outcome in a very meaningful way. I recently proved my doctor wrong - a very very very good doctor at the most renowned cancer treatment facility. No he was not negligent or incompetent. This happened because my case was very different from the majority of other women in a similar situation. I have paid close attention to all the details, all the data, every single piece of test results, and I made a connection that the doctor missed, because he was not looking for it, and probably he hardly has ever seen something like it, and had no reason to look for it.

The moral of the story: data, research, and facts are our survival tools. Ignore them at your own peril.

Again, I apologize if I come across condescending and unsupportive. However, in web sites like this, we spend sometimes too much time responding emotionally to each other's journey while some hard nosed and objective discussion might give us better insight into what needs to be done.

PS: it's not true that there is no quantifiable data. On the contrary, there is plenty. Just google the survival odds. The life expectancy can be obtained by multiplying the time period mentioned (e.g., 5 years) by the odds of survival (%). sO, if the odds are given at 20%, the life expectancy is 1 year (5 year x 20%). However, this is a blunt instrument at the time of DX. Once you are way past the time of initial DX, the conditional probability of survival is calculated based on how far you are out from DX and what your past medical history has been. data regarding this is far less conclusive. This is where the doctors' own personal experience, insight, and knowledge comes to the foreground as a basis for the estimate. Even so, there are still pretty good data: every time I read clinical trial study results,I look for the survival data of women in the control group. This gives a pretty good approximation of the actual data on a larger scale - probably a bit better than the general population since most trial participants tend to be a bit healthier than the average patients.

evertheoptimist said:

so, if a physician, or for
so, if a physician, or for that matter any professionals with years of training in their field, was asked to give an honest input, should s/he ALWAYS say, "no way to tell since there is no such thing as 100% correct answer".

If so, there is no point in asking any question to any professionals regardless of their expertise and experience since NOTHING is 100% certain in this world.

We are asking THEM these questions precisely because of their expertise and experience through years and years of honing their skills and knowledge in a hope to get an answer that has a good validity.

If you are making an investment decision, and asked the financial advisor the odds of success, would you be happier if you got the answer "I can't tell since nothing is 100% certain" Or, would you be better off if he said "95%" success when his "honest" opinion based on his experience and understanding of the market put the odds at 50%?

If I ask my doctor a very pointed question, i expect him to give his best opinion honestly, rather than condescend to me by giving an answer that he thinks will make me happier. I am not a child. I am counting on him to share his expertise and knowledge so that I can make a better decision based on better vetted data.

In the end, it's our intellect that will allow us to chart a better course of action and increase our odds of survival. One thing I learned through this while journey is this: treatment decisions for recurrent advanced UPSC or OVCA are much more of an art than science. Even among the very best practitioners, we are finding a lot of variances. Not all doctors are correct all the time. There is a tremendous room for informed patients advocating themselves with facts, knowledge, objectivity, and reason to affect the outcome in a very meaningful way. I recently proved my doctor wrong - a very very very good doctor at the most renowned cancer treatment facility. No he was not negligent or incompetent. This happened because my case was very different from the majority of other women in a similar situation. I have paid close attention to all the details, all the data, every single piece of test results, and I made a connection that the doctor missed, because he was not looking for it, and probably he hardly has ever seen something like it, and had no reason to look for it.

The moral of the story: data, research, and facts are our survival tools. Ignore them at your own peril.

Again, I apologize if I come across condescending and unsupportive. However, in web sites like this, we spend sometimes too much time responding emotionally to each other's journey while some hard nosed and objective discussion might give us better insight into what needs to be done.

PS: it's not true that there is no quantifiable data. On the contrary, there is plenty. Just google the survival odds. The life expectancy can be obtained by multiplying the time period mentioned (e.g., 5 years) by the odds of survival (%). sO, if the odds are given at 20%, the life expectancy is 1 year (5 year x 20%). However, this is a blunt instrument at the time of DX. Once you are way past the time of initial DX, the conditional probability of survival is calculated based on how far you are out from DX and what your past medical history has been. data regarding this is far less conclusive. This is where the doctors' own personal experience, insight, and knowledge comes to the foreground as a basis for the estimate. Even so, there are still pretty good data: every time I read clinical trial study results,I look for the survival data of women in the control group. This gives a pretty good approximation of the actual data on a larger scale - probably a bit better than the general population since most trial participants tend to be a bit healthier than the average patients.

evertheoptimist said:

well, we will have to agree
well, we will have to agree to disagree on this.

I think there is NOTHING dishonest about the physician's answer. Dishonestly implies ill intention to deceive. The doctor did no such thing. He did not give a depressing, and dishonest answer to harm the patient. He was asked about his opinion as a doctor, and he complied.


I believe we diminish ourselves and worsens our odds when we can't maintain some measure of reason and rationality in dealing with all this by turning everything into an emotional exercise. Not to dismiss emotional aspects. I am only talking about the situation when our emotions get the better of our reason.

Anyway, we are beating this horse to death, and I will stop here.

Peace, and good luck with everything!