You Have Plenty of Time to Deal with Cancer; You Might as Well Take It Easy
Because of my mother's cancer, I have stayed in cancer circles for ten years. Through Tianya Hospital, Sina Blogs, and QQ groups I have come to know a great many cancer patients and their families, and I constantly see anxious cancer patients and families rushing about seeking treatment everywhere. Barely finished with chemotherapy, they are off asking about bio-immunotherapy; barely finished with bio-immunotherapy, they are off to find a TCM doctor; and shortly after seeing TCM doctor A, they are off to TCM doctor B. Everything else in life is set aside, leaving only one thing: treating cancer.
Yesterday, on the space of an aunt with lung cancer, I saw a reposted article about overtreatment. The article summarized and analyzed the causes of overtreatment. It holds that overtreatment is the fault of both hospitals and doctors on one hand, and patients and their families on the other. Hospitals overpromote, and doctors, for departmental commissions, encourage patients to undergo multiple treatments—these are objective facts. But many patients and their families also cannot escape blame: they rush about seeking anti-cancer doctors and methods at any cost, and some even ruin their entire family fortune, in a state of great agitation.
Most cancer treatments damage the body, and the cumulative damage of multiple treatments is even greater. In my observation, many cancer patients have been tormented to death by various treatments. If patients could treat treatment with a laid-back, rational attitude and not grind themselves to the bitter end, the results would actually be better. Cancer cells are very hard to wipe out completely; insisting on pursuing them relentlessly costs great bodily damage. Once the body is seriously damaged, immunity falls, and the cancer counterattacks even more wildly. There are often early-stage cancer patients who die within a year of treatment, while some middle-to-late-stage patients with the same cancer live a long time. The reason lies in the intensity during treatment. Overtreatment causes rapid recurrence and metastasis, ending in loss of both the patient's money and their life.
Some patients seek treatment too eagerly. They find one TCM doctor, and if there is no effect after a week or two, they immediately stop the Chinese medicine and look for the next TCM doctor. Patients with this mindset would be better off giving up TCM treatment. This desire for quick results is unsuited to the slower effects of TCM.
A cruel fact is that for most middle-to-late-stage cancer patients, prolonging survival rather than curing the cancer is the most realistic choice. But this fact is hard for cancer patients and their families to accept; they hope for a complete cure and therefore seek treatment at any cost, even ruining their families. Doctors sometimes tell patients and their families plainly that doing so is irrational and will result in loss of both money and life, yet patients and families still will not give up. With this mindset, overtreatment is unavoidable.
So far, among the middle-to-late-stage cancer patients I have seen, those fortunate enough to be cured were not necessarily the ones who ground themselves to the end; rather, some were very composed patients who followed relatively gentle treatment plans and finally achieved good results. Most patients who grind themselves to the end against cancer have poor outcomes.
Cancer is a chronic disease; it does not kill the patient immediately. Carrying a tumor in the body does not immediately kill the patient either, but high-intensity treatment can kill the patient in the short term. So in treating cancer, take it easy, lengthen the battle line, pursue longer survival, and be realistic! Don't take the tumor's existence and growth too much to heart.