The following Op-Ed by Nora Zamichow appeared in the LA Times Oct 24, 2014.
We learned about my husband’s inoperable brain tumor from a nurse who doled out the news as though providing his cholesterol count. Mark stood frozen. I clutched at him and wailed.
“Are you OK?” the nurse asked.
Was she insane? Which part of this could remotely be described as OK?
Mark worried about how we would tell the kids, three adult children from his first marriage and our 11-year-old daughter.
“We will tell them,” he said thoughtfully, “that we hit a rough patch.” Only Mark could refer to a widespread brain tumor as a “rough patch.”
My husband was a hardcore journalist, relentless in pursuit of a good story, no matter whose sacred cow he skewered. He was also a really smart guy, winning a scholarship to Harvard University from a San Bernardino public school. He began studying chess at age 15 and eventually became a ranked master. After leaving newspapers, he ran his own public relations firm. His greatest fear, he later told me, was that something might happen to his brain.
After diagnosis, we hit the ground running, signing on with a top doctor at UCLA. Quality of life, we told him, was our most important priority. But when he offered hope that Mark might be able to gain another five years of life, we leapt at the chance.
Still reeling from the diagnosis, we readily agreed to the arduous treatment course the specialist suggested: six weeks of chemotherapy and radiation conducted concurrently. This would be followed by five days of chemo every month. At 58, Mark was relatively young and strong, and a doctor told us that 50% of the UCLA patients with his kind of tumor were alive after five years.
We never thought about that other 50%, and when we discussed treatment options, no one proposed the most basic: Do nothing.
But amid the flurry of medical meetings, a friend introduced Mark to a doctor who had also been diagnosed with a brain tumor, though one considered less aggressive. Mark spoke with him. Oddly enough, this fellow had passed up certain treatments. Why, we wondered, would he do that?
Why? Because doctors don’t die like the rest of us.
Physicians often decline treatment in cases of terminal illness, wrote Dr. Ken Murray in “How Doctors Die,” an essay for the Zocalo Public Square website.
“What’s unusual about [doctors],” Murray wrote, “is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little.”
Physicians are much more likely than the general public to sign a living will, specifying what, if any, treatments they want in the event of serious illness, according to a 2003 study. In a recent Stanford University School of Medicine study of 1,081 doctors, 88% said they would choose a do-not-resuscitate order for themselves. Further, this group agreed they did not want treatment if they had an “incurable and irreversible condition that will result in … death.” Doctors are more familiar not just with death but with the foibles of trying to flout it. “Of course, doctors don’t want to die,” wrote Murray. “But they know enough about modern medicine to know its limits.”In the case of the physician who spoke to my husband, he declined treatments when he found conflicting opinions about their efficacy. “I am not anti-therapy,” he said. “I am for evidence-based therapy.”What about the rest of us? We depend on doctors to level with us. But do they?“The overall quality of communication between clinicians and patients with advanced illness is poor, particularly with respect to discussing prognosis,” according to a recently released Institute of Medicine report.Still, hard truths sometimes come out. As Mark climbed atop the table for his first radiation dose, he turned to the radiologist and asked how long he was likely to live. Without blinking, the radiologist replied: “At best, a year and a half.”
By the end of six weeks of chemotherapy and radiation, Mark could no longer walk. Without warning, he would get dizzy and fall to the floor, a phenomenon doctors could not explain. Despite our repeated entreaties about preserving Mark’s quality of life, the doctors advised staying the course.
That meant a series of terrifying episodes. One afternoon, Mark walked into a public restroom and locked the door. As I waited for him, I heard a crash and realized I could not enter the bathroom.
Days after another fall, Mark ended up in the hospital. Under the influence of anti-seizure medication, he had begun to hallucinate. Strange fish dived at him from the ceiling. I had to put myself between him and a hospital nurse he thought was trying to harm him.
After the next round of chemo, Mark again landed in the hospital, where his condition worsened rapidly. He was bedbound and, often, unresponsive. It was hard to know if he knew me. Within weeks, even the doctors recommended hospice.
“It is possible,” the oncologist said, “that treatment made Mark’s tumor grow rather than shrink.”
Mark defied all odds and predictions, regaining strength and lucidity while in hospice care. He began walking again. His oldest son played piano for Mark, and they enjoyed late night movies on a bedside TV. Mark watched Stephen Colbert with our young daughter cuddled next to him. He went fishing with the kids and shot guns at a range with friends.
I read aloud to Mark, poetry and short stories. And finally, one day I read him Murray’s essay. Mark listened carefully, and then he comforted me. “If I had the slightest chance of living longer with treatment, then of course we would have to try.”
But I also realized my husband had no memory of the various stages of his illness. He could not recollect all the falls, hallucinations and hospitalizations.
If I were granted a do-over, would I subject him to treatment, knowing it might turn out as it did?
No.
But oncologists, as a doctor friend put it, are peddlers of hope, and non-treatment was never presented as an option.
Only at the end, after we opted out, did it feel like Mark grappled with the cancer on his own terms.
Ten months after his diagnosis, my husband died with me by his side in bed at home.
Nora Zamichow is a Los Angeles journalist and former Times staff writer.
Twitter: @Zamichow
Comments from Chris
First to Nora, I am so sorry for your loss. Thank you for courageously sharing your experience as a caregiver, and what is most certainly an unpopular opinion in the cancer treatment world. I know your perspective will inspire many more patients to carefully consider all of their options, not just the ones presented by their doctors.
Readers of this site know that I refused chemotherapy because the “60% chance of living five years” that it offered me, as explained by my oncologist, did not inspire enough confidence for me to agree to it. But I didn’t just say no to treatment, I radically changed my diet and lifestyle in order to give my body the best chance at healing. 14 years later, I have no doubt that I made the right choice.
Despite what many in the cancer industry would have you believe, those who do nothing often live longer and most certainly have a better quality of life than those who agree to brutal and destructive chemo and radiation treatments.
We all have the choice to live on our own terms, and die on our own terms.
Having said that, more people than ever before are refusing conventional treatments and healing cancer with a radical change of diet and lifestyle along with natural non-toxic therapies. (See my interviews with natural survivors)
But sadly, Mark and Nora’s story is still the norm. I continually receive messages from cancer patients who have blindly trusted their oncologist’s advice only to find out that the treatments ultimately made their cancer worse, not better.
The sad reality is that many cancer patients just do not understand (or are mislead) about the likelihood that cancer treatment will cure them. The study outlined in my post Are cancer patients hopes for chemo too high? reveals just how uninformed most cancer patients are.
Nora’s doctor friend who described oncologists as “peddlers of hope” was spot on.
A recent study found that 9 out of 10 cancer center ads use emotional fluff and messages of hope to attract patients, with little mention of success rates, risk or cost.
…
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This Post Has 15 Comments
Very sorry for Nora’s loss. Thank you for putting Mark’s story out there, it’s so important to see the other side of the coin.
My mother passed away from breast cancer, lung, and brain tumors only three years after her initial diagnosis of breast cancer. She had a mastectomy, two rounds of chemo and one of radiation. I fully believe that the chemo and radiation treatments caused the lung and brain tumors. I wish I had the knowledge back in 2000 that I do today.
meanwhile, conventional oncologists accuse alternative doctors of peddling “false” hopes
Chris,
I am a cancer survivor who also did not choose chemo. I recently was sent a link for a treatment in Europe that seemed interesting called GcMAF (website is http://www.GcMAF.edu) This is for late stage cancers and not harmful. Sometimes a person doesn’t have enough time for alternative treatments to work and needs a boost from something else. Anyway, let me know what you think about this one. I enjoy your website, especially that you are a christian! Renae
Hi Chris and happy holidays! I’m an avid reader of your site and I find you incredibly inspiring. The service you provide to other cancer survivors is invaluable. I know you’re very busy, but there’s something I’d really like to ask you. Unfortunately, I had chemo and radiation before I found you, for stage 3 breast cancer. I worry that my immune system was damaged and the cancer will come back. Do you think that the radical lifestyle changes you made are as powerful once you’ve already done traditional treatment? I feel pretty good a year after treatment, but I hope I haven’t done anything irreparable. The fear is hard to live with. Thanks so much.
Hi Lisa,
I would say yes, to radically change your diet and lifestyle will ONLY HELP YOU, to keep cancer from coming back and to restrengthen your immune system. To do nothing you will most likely get your cancer back. I wish you much wellness and natural healing. You cant change the past, you can only change how your future will be. I strongly encourage you to make these positive life changes. Best of luck!
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There is of course another option. No conventional treatment, plus a whole array of alternative methods, including energy healing. I highly recommend Leigh Fortson’s book, Embrace, Release, Heal for examples of cancer sufferers who came to the end of the road with allopathic medicine and then found another way to heal. In my personal experience, terminal cancer patients who embraced alternative treatments plus energy healing often not only outlived the prognoses they received from their doctors, but also experienced a much higher quality of life longer than conventionally treated patients with similar cancers.
Thank you for sharing this tragic story. I am very saddened by the loss of Mark.
I was diagnosed with prostate cancer 4 years ago. I declined conventional treatment…and for a very good reason. I lost 4 family members to cancer. And each suffered greatly from the treatments. Had they declined treatment I am sure they would have lived much longer and had a better quality of life.
I can still remember the look in my oncologists eye when I told him no. I also told him about the tragic story of my long lost family members.
I am still fighting this cancer, but it will only be through natural methods.
I will soon be 66 which means I have already out lived all members of my immediate family. I know some day I will die, and it may be from cancer. But I will fight it every day. One thing is for sure……I will not die from the toxic side effects of radiation or chemo…..so help me God!
I agree100%
i wish you well, Duane. I, too, am not doing any conventional treatment for breast cancer. Let’s stay optimistic and do whatever we can to heal. How tragic to lose so many family members to cancer and conventional treatments.
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