When you get cancer how are you going to handle it?

This is a really good thread and at 44 I've been really lucky to be cancer free and hopefully i will never have this horrible disease. However, at the end of the day when you think about it we are all going to die. It's crap. I don't want to die, i love life. What scares me is how i am going to die. My worst fear is dying in pain whilst having a heart attack.

I have 2 daughters who are 9 and 10. No matter matter how much i love them and word's can't describe how much i love them, they are eventually going to die and there's absolutely nothing i can do about it. Life is utterly brilliant and utterly crap at the same time.

If you could really live forever then to put it into perspective the sun will eventually burn out and everything on earth will die anyway. We are all doomed, some sooner than later .....
 
No idea how I would handle it, I want to continue thinking I'm invincible and worry about it if it happens.

It is probably the best course of action, especially if you suffer from anxiety as I do.
 
Everyone that you've ever known, and ever will know in the future, will almost certainly be dead in well under two centuries. Two hundred years, of the two million humans have been around. That's only a drop in the ocean compared to the 4.5 billion of the Earth.

Then there's 7 billion of us, of which you will speak to maybe a thousand, slightly more. An insignificant proportion. And we are all just here, on a rock floating aimlessly in an infinite space.

The scale is simply incomprehensible. As irrelevant as our lives truly are in the grander scheme of things, it's what you make of it. The fact that you are even here, a bundle of atoms out of the trillions and trillions and trillions, is amazing. Savour it.
 
My granddad died of a heart attack at 64 walking the dog... my dad also died at 64 from a heart attack too.. he even had a triple heart bypass but to much damage was already done and died last year... but they both were heavy smokers and drinkers...

i dont drink or smoke so if i make it past 64 ill be very happy but then again knowing my luck ill probably end up with cancer or something just as horrible :(
 
i'd probably wallow in self pity.

if i was diagnosed with something terminal with no chance of remission, there's quite a few people i'd like to take out before i go. :p
 
My step-grandad had terrible lung cancer from being a chain smoker, he somehow recovered after having a lung removed. He can't move quickly at all, and understandably everything is a lot of effort.
 
50% is overstated as it's based on the general population which are fat, smoke, drink excessively, have a terrible diet, burn themselves to a crisp with sunbeds and never exercise.

In any case I'm certainly not dying from dementia, that's what barbiturates are for.
 
I have worked with terminally ill cancer sufferers I think its a terribly undignified way to go. However they all face it with such bravery and humour
I hope I would be the same.
 
Two of my aunts had breast cancer, my nan had cancer in her bladder, my father is currently beating treated for prostate cancer.
 
What a lovely title "when you get it". I wouldn't even think about it until I was actually diagnosed, which will hopefully never happen.
 
Cancer really puts things into perspective.

Went to see a workmate at the hospital last week in the chemo ward, connected to a bag of poison on a trolley, hairless and thin. Aged 30 with secondary lung cancer, 75% chance it'll cure him, 75% seems like good odds but still.....

Used to think I had problems, work issues, money problems, worries about silly things - walking out of that chemo ward really taught me that my problems are a joke compared to what some people have to deal with.
 
Mrs Seabiscuit said:
I have worked with terminally ill cancer sufferers I think its a terribly undignified way to go. However they all face it with such bravery and humour
I hope I would be the same.
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Same here.

We nursed my mother-in-law and she displayed courage and humour to the bitter end. Quite inspirational and her behaviour put into perspective some of our reactions to insignificant events.

I shudder to think how she felt behind that face and doubt very much whether you could put it in words.
 
V-Spec said:
Cancer really puts things into perspective.

Went to see a workmate at the hospital last week in the chemo ward, connected to a bag of poison on a trolley, hairless and thin. Aged 30 with secondary lung cancer, 75% chance it'll cure him, 75% seems like good odds but still.....

Used to think I had problems, work issues, money problems, worries about silly things - walking out of that chemo ward really taught me that my problems are a joke compared to what some people have to deal with.
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This is very true. Having held my dads hand as he died and then later being treated for cancer myself you realise whats important and what isn't. In some ways it can be a positive thing in your life. It's now hard to get worried about trivial matters like money and work. I think it annoys my wife though because she doesn't understand why I don't get worked up about things like she does.
 
Cosimo said:
Same here.

We nursed my mother-in-law and she displayed courage and humour to the bitter end. Quite inspirational and her behaviour put into perspective some of our reactions to insignificant events.

I shudder to think how she felt behind that face and doubt very much whether you could put it in words.
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I agree with this comment sim.
 
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