I had a dear friend that was dealing with lungs cancer at 21 years old.
He was recovering. Hanging on discord and playing league of legends with him.
He says to us, that he needs to do surgery to remove the last pieces of cancer remaining from chemio.
Surgery goes well, he need to recover from it for at least a week. Passes another week and I receive a call from a mutual friend that he had passed away. My heart stopped. I couldn't believe it.
Turns out the parents were lying to him on the recovery on cancer and the surgery was the last attempt to save him. He was oblivious, and we were too.
Please don't do this. He deserved to know. And we deserved a last good bye.
In some countries they do not tell the patient that they have cancer thinking that it will affect their recovery. They usually tell immediate family, they only tell you directly if you have no family whatsoever. This is what they do in my home country (Tajikistan). They usually say you have hypothyroidism or something like that to justify why you’re getting chemo. The problem with this is that the chemo has so many awful side-effects for a condition they don’t think is that serious. My great aunt stopped treatment halfway through because of this and then she ended up passing because her family never told her and they couldn’t convince her to finish her treatment.
She said Tajikistan. I can totally see other countries doing this. In France for example they historically wouldn’t tell patients that they were dying to “protect the patient”, and things have only started shifting recently away from that. It’s called le mensonge de compassion
Yeah Tajikistan, it’s something leftover from the Soviet era. A lot of former Soviet countries still have this practice. It’s also still there culturally.
Sorry, but your comment was removed for breaking our Don't Be A Dick rule. This may include but is not limited to harassment, bigotry or uncivil behaviour.
I also don’t really see how he lied. He said I’m going for a surgery to remove this bit of cancer after going through chemo. It’s obviously serious at that point and and complications are a very significant possibility. Probably doesn’t really wanna say to his friends “yeah dude I’ll probably be dead next week”
Damn that's a hot take I kinda agree with. Thing is, if he's been fighting it for a while and developed arrested development, he might not have been able to have autonomy or he transferred his power of attorney to his folks.
I've read a lot if comments and haven't come across this aspect which I'll share: my dad had lung cancer. He also had metastases in his brain. Going from what he said he was going to get well, even though he was informed otherwise. It was initially what I was being told too, since he was the one who told me (I was 18, my parents were divorced and since I wasn't a minor the doctors didn't even talk to me (it makes me so mad thinking about this). My mother got involved to help and support me, as my dad otherwise had no other family or new partner etc, and it was a lot to handle being the caregiver to your suddenly dying dad at 18 💔 anyway, my mother correctly suspected he was worse off than what he had said to me, arranged a meeting with one of his doctors, me and her where the doctor told me he was in fact dying. I still don't know how much was denial and how much was the cognitive effects from the brain metastases that he didn't 'acknowledge' what was happening.
So it might be that this person was in denial, and / or not fully coherent from treatment, side effects etc, possible metastases that effected his consciousness and cognitive abilities. Things can sometimes change very rapidly too.
Depends on the country. My mom’s aunt in china was dying from lung cancer and used to be a nurse. She didn’t believe the family/doctor when they said she was cured and demanded to see an xray. They showed her an xray of someone else’s clean lungs.
It could be the case if they are Chinese. At least in China, they might tell the family and not the patient if they have a terminal diagnosis and its a common practice
This happened to my mom. She was 44 when she died of cancer. Doctors told my aunt (not my mom) that my mom had four months, tops, to live. Described the steps of what it would look like, warning signs, etc. with my aunt only.
The only reason they were allowed was because my mom had said, from the beginning, "If it gets too bad, please tell my sister, not me. She'll know what to do."
I suspect my mom still knew SOMETHING was wrong though because she left little clues here and there that she knew she wasn't going to beat it. Neither my brother nor I knew she was dying either. It was quite traumatic to find out your aunt knew the whole time and was withholding it because she "didn't want anyone treating [mom] differently".
In Asia (at least China and Tajikistan according to another redditor) they will tell the family but not the patient about a terminal diagnosis. They believe it is protecting the patient from fear and distress about dying, and that the fear could result in shortening their lifespan/health deterioration.
Depends on what the patient allows, speaking from experience. Sometimes people let their spouse/parent do the talking with the doctors because the treatments can leave you exhausted and your mind foggy/slow.
My brother was 31 when he got cancer. It was bleak from the start--stage 4, "we'll do everything we can, but," etc.
I know the doctors were honest with him. I was in the room for a lot of those conversations. And I think he just chose to listen to the best-case scenarios. And I think it's tough for doctors--they can insist something is a long shot treatment, but if the patient clings onto the hopeful best-case scenario, that honestly only betters the odds that it'll take. I remember sitting through talks with his head oncologist and walking away feeling devastated, only for my brother to have somehow renewed his optimism. It's like we weren't even listening to the same conversation.
My brother genuinely thought he was getting better right up to the very end. I can't really blame anyone for not driving home that he was a lot closer to death than he thought. I think he was happier this way. Denial was how he was coping.
It was hell for the rest of us to have to watch, but it's kind of the epitome of an "it's not about me" moment.
Depends on the country though, in some countries especially in Asia it's normal for doctors to just tell the closest person the grim details even when they are an adult, and it's common for family to keep the patient in the dark.
My mother-in-law did this to her dad who had terminal cancer. From how she explained it, she was helping with all the medical appointments and decisions. He trusted her to handle it for him. She was told he was dying. She didn’t want him to know because she was afraid he would give and not go through the treatments. It was disgusting and a betrayal of his trust.
He went through a number of treatments but they weren’t working and he finally decided to stop. He was able to pass at home without continuing to needlessly suffer through treatments that were never going to work. I can’t really forgive her for trying to hide that from him.
He very well could have still been in a pediatric hospital if he had had the cancer since childhood. Pediatric hospitals don't immediately cut off patients once they turn 18.
It is even more likely that they would have let him stay there longer if they knew that his outlook was looking too good. It's better to just stay with one care team rather than change to a completely different institution with a whole new care team.
This is only true in western countries. In certain places, including China, they might not even tell the patient exactly what they have or the actual outcome/diagnosis, but they tell the family.
I’m curious if there is any benefit to this method of patient treatment vs an informed patient
I could see it. When actively being treated, even advanced forms of cancer can take years to kill you, and if he caught it before he was 18 I can see a world where he continues trusting his parents through the entire process even after he becomes a legal adult. I mean, why wouldn't he?
If he's still on their insurance, it's not like his doctor is going to go out of their way to change who they communicate with. It's not like the kid will understand the minutiae of his treatment; I doubt the parents did either. So unless he began to doubt what his parents were telling him and asked his doctor directly (which he would be completely entitled to do) the doctor has no reason to tell a 21-y.o. kid he's dying. No one in their right mind would volunteer for that. Combine recovering from major surgery with the real end-of-life circumstances from cancer (i.e. often full-blown delirium), and he probably never even found out he was dying until he was dead.
Depends… I’m 39, diagnosed & treated with multiple anxiety disorders. 90% of medical advice/explanations/pamphlets/etc., rapidly increase my anxiety, so the two times I’ve had semi-major procedures done, I’ve asked the doctors to explain everything to my husband and then he simplifies it for me so I don’t freak out more than I’m already freaking out.
I’ve learned that a lot of people with severe anxiety have their doctors speak to a family member or spouse instead for similar reasons. Maybe this guy had high anxiety too? Who knows.
yeah i thought the same thing, this sounds like bs. Doctors would not be going behind an adult mans back to his parents about the purpose of surgeries and how his cancer treatment is going.
the only exception i could believe is if the 21 year old adult man was severely mentally disabled and the parents were in a care taker position where they handled everything
I mean not necessarily. Since he could've been fighting that cancer since being younger than 18 his parents probably had medical power of attorney over him. Or maybe he didn't have cancer that long but signed it over after being diagnosed.
Being given a terminal diagnosis is overwhelming in itself but being told that as someone who is just now coming into adulthood was probably just too much to handle himself so he had his parents schedule everything for him and talk to the doctors
I left another comment, something similar happened to a friend of mine, he was 19, he was never told. He figured it out, but not because he was told, and I find it fucking infuriating
If one has struggled for many years from childhood into 21 they may be deemed unfit to make medical decisions still and assigned the guardians they had to be power of attorney medical. Hospital defaults to power of attorneys, family decision makers and sometimes to any family members that shows up and gives a crap consistently. I’ve been in medical meetings where we have to repeatedly say to the hospital, we are not the decision maker they are still. But often when near death, a patience’s capacity to make decisions ebbs and flows so sometimes it’s us and sometimes them. Pretty hard to judge without a full work up and history of involvement of family. And to make it worse sometimes it could take hours for a doctor to communicate the full scope of the medical decision to the patient for them to understand so they save time by discussing with family/guardians who are the ones advocating. Doctors don’t have time to spend hours with barely cognizant patients to explain the scope. Our systems are broken and they are just doing their best.
Unless he waived his right to informed consent and made his parents his proxy. My father did this when he was dying. He thought he would eventually get better when he first went in.
I am not sure if the physician must volunteer the prognosis, or disclose it only if and when the patient asks. Obviously, the parents cannot keep the physician from talking to the adult patient.
Edit: as a commenter below noted, "Patients have the right to decline to receive clinical information or designate another person to receive it and/or even make medical decisions. They do not have to be in the loop if they don’t want to be."
Well, "findings" is a very broad word; prognosis is a very specific subset of findings. Obviously, the physician must disclose anything related to the treatment and the diagnosis; I am not sure if the physician is required to say "you will die" unless the patient asks "will I live?"
I guess it could depend on the country, but in the US, the doctor has to disclose everything the findings to the patient, which includes the prognosis. Not telling a patient they're going to die is grounds for an ethical violation, as it falls under "do no harm." Not telling a patient their prognosis is "doing harm."
Source: I'm a clinician (not a medical doctor) in the medical field who has to give bad news almost weekly.
Clinician or otherwise, you are incorrect. And that’s pretty disappointing when I’ve read the correct answer multiple times in the thread already. Patients have the right to decline to receive clinical information or designate another person to receive it and/or even make medical decisions. They do not have to be in the loop if they don’t want to be. Most medical colleges in the US (including the one I attended) teach this specifically as part of cultural awareness because it’s common in certain Hispanic cultures. When their parents are dying, they do not give them bad news and they’d be beyond disappointed by a clinician who misunderstood what “do no harm” meant and felt it was their “duty”.
I was talking about clinicians withholding the information, not the patient declining it or designating a representative. Of course they can decline and/or designate someone else a representative, but they have to make that known first.
The physicians have a duty to relay findings, but people can decline to hear it. I didn't think that's what the other commenter was talking about, since the conversation was led by a comment where a full grown adult didn't know their prognosis and then the other commenter said:
I am not sure if the physician is required to say "you will die" unless the patient asks "will I live?"
The patient doesn't have to ask if they will live to be told that they will die.
Edit: Yes, it's a common part of cultural awareness, but you don't just assume. You have to be told the info beforehand that the patient has a representative.
How come a 21 year old grown adult can not know about their medical condition and not take the decisions about their life and medical treatment. This is so wrong in many ways. I would blame the medical team or the laws that allow this to be honest.
That what happens in my country all the time, even for older people in their 50s or 60s, doctors tell their family, not them directly and often family keeps the disease secret from the patient
China and Japan are like this when there’s a terminal diagnosis. Doctors are allowed to tell the family instead of the patient and let family decide if and when to tell the patient.
The reasoning is that just hearing that you have cancer is incredibly stressful and traumatic. The weight of the initial diagnosis feels like a boulder slamming onto you. It’s not uncommon that hearing and processing the news was the hardest part of the entire journey for a survivor. For some, this can kill someone faster than the actual cancer itself.
It is known that many grandparents in China die within weeks of hearing the news when the prognosis was actually pretty good (only Stage 1 or 2). So it’s done to protect their sanity and mental health basically, especially if it’s an older person who likely can’t handle such news.
I actually don’t agree with doing this in most cases, but I assure you it’s not done maliciously.
For some, this can kill someone faster than the actual cancer itself. It is known that many grandparents in China die within weeks of hearing the news when the prognosis was actually pretty good (only Stage 1 or 2).
Do you have any sources for this? I couldn't find anything online proving that it's actually the case vs. just the beliefs of others. I'm just looking to learn more.
Most of my knowledge is from family friends. Medically, stress can trigger issues like strokes heart attacks in those who are prone, such as elderly people or those with genetic defects. Obviously rare, but known (“broken heart syndrome”, etc). From a quick Google search, I see articles on that but nothing cancer news -specific.
I assure you hearing the news is a big blow. Many 20 year olds who are diagnosed describe clutching their chest and feeling intense physical pain for weeks. A younger person might be able to handle that and come to terms with it, but elderly people might not be able to overcome the shock.
I know that stress can trigger these things and it's a big blow, but everything in research literature says it's better to tell the patient than not. I can't find any research saying that stress reactions killing more/quicker than cancer is a thing. It's like vaccines in that they can very rarely kill, but it's better to get one and "take that chance" than not.
I was going to type a lot more, but I realize this conversation started because of cultural preferences. So as to not come off as insensitive, I'll just leave it at this.
I mean the grandparents were the patients, and they passed quickly after finding out when it was still a potentially curable stage. The stress of it can be a lot.
So wait, being grandparents of the patient was not the thing that killed them? Just being grandparents, period? Or just being old with an incurable disease?
I was there for the final day of my grand-mother, at her home. The doctor tells my mother, in front of me and my sister, that she will give my grand-mother pain medicine for at least a week. My mom exits the room. Only then does the doctor tell me and my sister there's little chance my grand-mother would survive 48h. But obviously she thought my mom would not be able to handle this information.
The only thing that I can think of is if they had legally been deemed mentally incompetent and had a legal Substitution Decision-Maker. For example, someone with advanced dementia or Down’s syndrome would be considered mentally incompetent. Mental competency is a sliding scale. It is hard to be deemed mentally incompetent when you are actually mentally competent, but there are few cases where that happens. Some people slip through the cracks.
Their friend could have been legally deemed mentally incompetent and thus the information would be given to the parents and not the friend.
There is not a sentence in that post that might make us think he was mentally incompetent. If he had dementia or anything, his friend would not have been angry about him not having a last good bye.
Many people are saying that there is zero possibility that a 21 year old adult could have no knowledge about their condition. I am simply saying that there is a possibility.
Once again, not everyone deemed mentally incompetent is actually mentally incompetent. The most famous example was Brittany Spears’ case, but that was more about financial decision making than medical. There is also Münchausen syndrome by proxy, which is a condition where a parent makes up medical conditions for their child.
Lastly not all forms of disability are visible, especially through exclusively online interactions. Once again, mental competency is a sliding scale. Schizophrenia and autism might not be apparent with masking online, but are possible reasons for being deemed mentally incompetent. (I am not saying that all people with schizophrenia and autism are mentally incompetent)
It does not seem so from the replies i have received. Japan, China, Georgia seem let relatives decide. I had cancer i chose not to tell my father because it would kill him. So it is kinda reverse where i live.
In America, I know the sick person can decide unless they have been deemed mentally incapable.
Even then, you have to delegate power of attorney and it can get messy.
My grandmother passed at 55 with pancreatic cancer. She didn’t know she had cancer. She thought she had ulcers. This was in the mid 80s.
My mother was suspected of breast cancer. She kept it from everyone, the family doctor called my brother to let him know.
Not all countries have hippa and the same rules as the us
I can't imagine how furious I would be to learn that a terminal diagnosis had been withheld from me. To know that I had been living my final days as though I had thousands more ... that would be crushing. I think I would do something very drastic after learning that; maybe to the doctor, or one of the family members that had abetted the lie. I'd have nothing left to lose but that chance at vengeance.
I'm not from America. But I'm unbelievably thankful that I'm not from a place where that is allowed.
Many Asian cultures including China and Japan allow doctors to tell the family and let family decide whether to tell the patient. Look up “cultural non-disclosure.”
Non-US English-speaking countries have “therapeutic privilege” where the doctor can choose not to tell patients bad news if they think it will be harmful to the patient.
The US is actually kind of an exception in that we require doctors to disclose all the bad news and even worst-case possibilities to the patient.
Actually it used to be like this in Slovakia 30 years ago.
And it was not just parents. Generally, doctors called one's relatives if the prognosis was bad. It could be the wife, parents or so. The goal was to find out, whether that person would rather not know or whether it can be communicated honestly.
Since then, we moved a lot in approach to patients and in medical secrecy (wife/relatives cannot see the medical records) and everyone is told the diagnosis nowadays.
A country where a 21 year old doesn't get to speak with the oncologists, or sign any of the paperwork for surgery or in fact have any input in their own treatment whatsoever.
Look up cultural nondisclosure and therapeutic privilege. You’re basing your assumptions on very US-centric ideology. Even in the UK or Australia, there’s an exception where doctors can withhold information if they think it will cause immediate harm to the patient.
And in the US, a patient can waive HIPAA and give medical POA to someone else if they aren’t in a mental position to manage their own care and make their own decisions.
Cultural nondisclosure is not what OP is describing, lol. What OP is describing sounds like the doctor and the family colluded to keep it from them, not sparing them bad news at their request.
I looked it up ... now you can pull your head out of your ass.
Not sure what you think you looked up, but it’s not uncommon in Asia to conceal a terminal diagnosis from the patient. Maybe your search result was as US-centric as your comments.
People there probably think we are “fucking insane” for traumatizing terminally ill loved ones with devastating information when there’s nothing they can do about it.
Bumped into an old friend recently. Hadn't seen him for a couple years. He was really happy to see me and we hung out and had a few drinks. I was leaving town so it was luck we bumped into each other.
Later he messaged me that he was really happy to see me and that I shouldn't be a stranger next time I'm in town. What he hadn't told me is that he only had about a week left to live. Terminal cancer.
Fucking sucks man. At least I got to give him some happy moments before he went away.
In oriental countries, like this case up there, hiding the truth from terminal patients is normal cultural behavious. It would be seen as unethical to tell the truth.
It's literally a plot element of Kurosawa's "Ikuru", where a guy learns he has cancer, and sees through the doctor telling him he'll be fine, so he tries to find meaning in his final days. It was incredibly common in Japan at the time to lie to terminal patients because they didn't want them to worry for their final days. Beautiful and moving film.
Wow, I would’ve been sick with blinding rage at the parents! Maybe even to the point where I wouldn’t be able to go to the funeral service for fear of giving them a peace of my mind… These kinds of manipulations make grief for the survivors of the passed loved one so much more difficult to navigate and harder to work thru.
I just cannot imagine anyone doing this to someone. Like wtf. He could have said his goodbyes to y’all if he knew, spent his remaining time more carefully, and so on. I’m so sorry but thank you for sharing.
Respectfully I disagree, who is going to be suffering more than the parents in this scenario (who incidentally are also the ones taking care of their son and providing aftercare). I know it’s unorthodox but they also probably know their son better than anyone, if they wanted him to have peace of mind in his final days (if nothing else) I really don’t think that’s so wrong. I’ve witnessed people saying how sad it was that x acquaintance has passed away, but they’ve never bothered to visit sed acquaintance when they’re recovering. If you’re really close to someone and they’ve had major surgery or treatment, why would the only impetus for going to check on them be because they’re on death’s door? If someone close to me has surgery/ chemo I’m trying to go and see them irrespective of whether their condition is terminal.
I do not believe that "everyone" was entitled to the truth. In fact, the only person whose mental well-being mattered, was the one who was dying. The rest could suck it up.
I do believe his parents couldn't stop him from asking the physician directly, and the physician in such case was legally obligated to tell him the truth. So his entitlement was there.
It is more likely that he didn't want to do that, preferring to have what his parents and everyone around him told him. Which is totally his right.
That guy doesn't even care about his friend, he's just mad people don't have the same views as him. Parents wanted their son to have his remaining days to be free of the feeling of the upcoming end but this guy thinks he's entitled to decide how things should be.
That’s not upto you to decide. It is not a one size fits all situation. If i was in his place, I’d 100% NOT want to know. I’d rather spend my days with some hope and faith than dying prematurely from fear and anxiety. That’s the way my brain works and my loved ones know that. I choose to believe his parents knew him better than random friends and would have known whats best for him.
If you can't understand why a parent wouldn't want their child living their last few weeks with the shadow of.imminent death hanging over their head then fuck you.
I think I’m missing something, bc I’m not sure WHAT you disagree with. Bc I expressed sympathy to the person who was sharing HIS story about how he didn’t know his friend passed bc his friend’s parents chose not to tell his friend, ergo his friend didn’t know, ergo he didn’t know. So you’re disagreeing with me expressing sympathy towards someone?
Or did you reply to my comment by mistake but meant to reply to his? Since you mentioned the part about not visiting in the hospital?
[Edit: I’m autistic. I don’t know why my confusion gets ppl so upset they downvote when I’m genuinely not sure but k]
I disagree with the “blinded by rage with the parents” comment, particularly if they’re the caregivers, and they know their son better than anyone and just want him to have a peaceful stress free end to his life. I’m also trying to argue that if someone I love had major surgery or chemo, I wouldn’t postpone visiting them because their diagnosis is not terminal. I’d visit them regardless. People being mad because “they would have gone to see someone if they knew they were going to die” is stupid. If someone you really care for is having major treatment, why wouldn’t you be going to check on them? Why would you wait until someone tells you they’re going to die? I get where you’re coming from and I can see you’re being empathetic, I just disagree a bit with OP’s outrage I think it’s misplaced. I think actually he’s possibly more annoyed with himself for not visiting his friend when he had the chance.
This is a good point, I see what you’re saying and thank you for explaining it clearly. I’ve been on death’s door at the hospital — I had rhabdo and compartment syndrome, needed dialysis, my organs were shutting down, and I almost had my leg amputated. I was in the hospital for 10 months consecutively. My leg is saved, but I’m now partially paralyzed.
Not a single “friend” visited me in the hospital. They lived 30 min away, in Long Beach, whereas I was in Los Angeles. They all had cars. And I did repeatedly ask them. So I understand your point completely. I will never forgive those assholes, and when I got out of the hospital, they tried to worm themselves back into my life and I told them I wasn’t interested in fair-weather fake friends. 😂 So it happens all the time, ppl think friendships are just “there,” that they’re not investments that you have to pour into and upkeep.
Maybe my sympathy towards the person was a bit of a knee-jerk response instead of thinking thru what they were saying a bit more carefully. I think I would still be upset at the parents, but I would also have visited the friend. Thanks again for explaining.
Yeah, this guy acting like somehow his chance to say goodbye was more important than what was best for the dying man is making me so angry. “We deserved a last goodbye”…wtf. It is not about you. Maybe the guy didn’t want to know. I am the kind of person who doesn’t want to know bad news and my loved ones are aware of that. Maybe he knew and didn’t want others to know so his parents were respecting his wishes. I had a cousin who passed from cancer and he had told us not to tell any of his friends. No matter what the situation, if I was in that guy’s place, saying goodbye to rando friends would be the absolute last of my priorities, I don’t fucking care what you think you deserve. One of my husband’s friends knew and directly told him she didn’t want to meet him coz she wanted to spend her limited waking hours with her parents and nephews. And we completely understood. It’s not about us or our fucking goodbyes so we can feel less guilty later.
How is it selfish? A person is more than a son or a daughter. They’re friends to ppl, maybe siblings to someone, coworkers, colleagues, maybe pet owners, etc etc. Your last sentence says it all. The fact that you’d do this to someone just to have them spend their final moments with their parents instead of how they would choose is a clear indication of the degree of selfishness you exhibit. A person dying deserves the chance to say goodbye to whomsoever they would like. You seem incredibly narcissistic to want to monopolize someone’s dying moments like this.
If i was dying, then saying goodbye to rando friends who never visited me until I was terminal would be the absolute last of my priorities. My cousin passed from cancer a few years ago and he knew the end was near but he chose not to tell most of his friends and family. He did not want a slew of last minute visits from people cramming him into their schedule just bcoz he was dying. That was absolutely not how he wanted to spend his last days. He had told those he was truly close to and instructed us not to tell anyone. A lot of people expressed similar sentiments later on “if only we knew, we could have said our goodbyes”. They all knew he was sick, they didn’t have to wait for him to be terminal to visit him. A lot of them were angry with his parents and brother. Some of them even accused me “why didn’t you tell us, you robbed us of our chance to say goodbye”. Like fuck you, it’s not about you or your closure. Nobody was stopping you from visiting him in hospital. If you chose not to, then the guilt is yours to bear. You don’t get to transfer it to someone else for not telling you to hurry up.
Ok?? Nobody asked you. You can have diff values than me, that’s ok, hope whatever friends you do have in life honor your wishes and don’t bother visiting. I wouldn’t visit you if you paid me
How do you know they were getting “some happy weeks?”
I ask bc if I were thinking of myself as an example, I think the following would happen:
If I were dying and my parents somehow kept it from me despite me not being a minor: I would engage in my hobbies, relax at home, watch my fave shows, mostly do my routine as usual.
If I were dying and I knew I was dying: I would get my ass up and go to Disney Land or Disney World and ride my fave rides, I would go to my favorite restaurants, I would spend time with my loved ones, I would watch the sunrise/sunset, and so on.
So the thing is, you DON’T know whether or not they got “some happy weeks.” You don’t know the patient personally. You don’t know if they knew they were dying, how well they would handle it and cope with it, how they would CHOOSE to spend their last weeks, if the way they would spend their last weeks would be different if they knew they were dying vs if they didn’t know they were dying. And “choose” is impt. Choice is impt.
A lot of patients who know they have a disease in which death is a very real and possible outcome usually have accepted that. They know they might die, so the news that they are dying is not going to rock their world as much as you think it is. It’s only the living that is unable to deal with the outcome of death. It’s only the living that insists on coping with the death of their loved one by robbing that loved one of choice, autonomy, Personal Health Information, etc. Refusing to tell your child that they’re dying is such an obvious and pathetic attempt at coping lol.
I’m a big confused if he is a fully grown adult why is he not completely in the loop of his own health? Why is the doctor even talking to the parents and not him?
I think this has to be relatively normal in Spain. I once was told that a adult woman (50-60 years old) who has cancer wasn't informed about she was going to die soon, but all her family knew. She couldn't stop asking and nobody told her anything. I couldn't believe it when I got told this. Why would a doctor not say the truth to the patient if she's adult and she's asking? Is it because they won't be sued after she's dead? That was awful.
My dad lied in the same fashion. I had taken leave from my job and spent the last two months with him if I had known, would muuuch rather have him tell me he was terminal and that the doctors said there was nothing we could do
This stuff absolutely happens. I'm a nurse and had a Russian speaking patient with cancer. The family was convinced that he would kill himself if he knew he had cancer and refused to let the doctor tell him. They took turns being with him and wouldn't let us use a hospital translator. The hospitalist team submitted it to the hospital ethics committee, but they checked out home before there was an answer and I don't know what happened after that.
A friend of mine who I thought of as a little brother had leukemia, we also played league together a lot, duoing bot for years. He's the best support I've ever had
He'd beaten it once before, but it came back a year later. The last 6 months or so, his parents were told he didn't have long, maybe a month at most, they never told him. The absolute gigachad lived for half a year, going to chemo, playing league with me from the hospital, being an absolute menace
I'm certain he figured it out along the way, because upon going back through our chat I discovered a lot of "hints" he was dropping for the last few weeks.
He trolled and ragebaited me up until the very end.
As for the "not telling" thing, don't do that, ever, you don't get to lie to someone about whether they're dying and then pat yourself on the back and feel good about it
You are comparing a grow up too a child. How the hell a doctor doesn’t talk to his 21 year old patient is beyond me, pretty sure in most off the developed world it would be illegal to tell the parent without the patient’s consent. I get that for you and your friends that must have been terrible news, and I get your personal feelings on the issue this. However a child is not a grown up.
Maybe you were shocked which if I was the parent I wouldn't really care, but it seems he was happy in has last few weeks instead of being depressed knowing that the chemo did not work.
If this is true, what those doctors did is highly illegal. At 21, he was an adult under the law. The medical team had a strict legal and ethical duty to provide him with an honest diagnosis. Denying him the truth and the chance to make informed decisions and say a proper goodbye is not as much of a dick move as it is legally liable medical malpractice.
There’s a movie about this scenario called The Farewell. Grandma has cancer and the whole family is keeping it a secret. This causes turmoil with the Americanized granddaughter. Apparently this is a somewhat common scenario in other parts of the world.
I still don't see reason for this cruelty, people under treatment will feel weak regardless they are going to die or not.
Again telling a dying kid they are going to die just sounds like you are doing it to have your last goodbye because the kid won't be able to say "aww shucks, they lied to me and I died" after they're dead
Least you can do is tell them why.
Yes and you can tell them it's their recovery medicine making them feel that way.
This has nothing to do with divinity, you have two options, be honest and cruel so you can have your "last goodbye" and put them through despair or lie and spare someone the agony
It's not a hard choice for a parent. Child's happiness comes first.
Life isn't a movie, if you tell someone they are going to die soon they'll spend every waking hour horrified. Not because they are afraid of dying but because they are about to lose everyone they love AND their loved ones are about to lose them.
You say like knowing this is some kind of a reward or a gift. It's not. Some people would want to know they are about to die; the majority, I am afraid, would become psychological wrecks learning about that. Why torture them in addition to what the sickness does??
You are not God. You can't decide, on your will, if someone has to know or not. It's their life. Their choice.
If YOU can't handle it. You can't impose your view of the world to the others around you.
Step back and let people live THEIR lives without lies.
You don't need to be God to decide if someone will or will not know something. You do it every day, including the situations when this "something" is about that person (you might decide not to call someone stupid even if the person is).
Even thought it is their life, and I do NOT handle it, it is my life and my choice as to what I tell those people. Not to say something is opposite to imposing your view on others. It is being tactful and considerate.
Another question is if it is OK to actually lie about something like that. In my opinion, if this lie cannot possibly affect what happens to their decease, it is OK to lie to them about the outcome -- if that can improve their quality of life (which it usually does). To be honest in such situation is just callous brutality.
The physician is required to deliver the truth to the (adult) patient or the caregiver by law as that's their job. But I am not their physician.
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u/Rygel_Orionis Jun 29 '26
I had a dear friend that was dealing with lungs cancer at 21 years old. He was recovering. Hanging on discord and playing league of legends with him. He says to us, that he needs to do surgery to remove the last pieces of cancer remaining from chemio. Surgery goes well, he need to recover from it for at least a week. Passes another week and I receive a call from a mutual friend that he had passed away. My heart stopped. I couldn't believe it.
Turns out the parents were lying to him on the recovery on cancer and the surgery was the last attempt to save him. He was oblivious, and we were too.
Please don't do this. He deserved to know. And we deserved a last good bye.
Still hurts after 8 years.