November 6, 2017

What to do about a woman with breast cancer who "thinks the so-called 'medical establishment' is corrupt..."

"... and has placed her survival in the hands of 'medical intuitives' who tell her to eat vegan foods, open her chakras, and visualize tying ribbons around her liver—I am not making this up. If she keeps this up, she’s going to die, and my brother will face terrible mourning again. His daughter (a medical technician) and I are appalled, but unfortunately, the girlfriend has the right to make her own (terrible) decisions."

A question for Dear Prudie at Slate.

36 comments:

wild chicken said...

Maybe it's a roundabout way of accepting death.

Same effect, anyway.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

His daughter (a medical technician) and I are appalled...

Yeah, but Darwin is smiling, so she's got that going for her, which is nice.

MadisonMan said...

Control is pretty important for some patients, and this lady is controlling her fate. Let her.

John henry said...

Her body, her choice.

Right?

Or does that Only apply to abortion?

Might be a stupid choice but as an adult it is her choice, and hers alone, to make

John Henry

Inga...Allie Oop said...

Evidence based medicine is the most reliable. I doubt there is evidence that alternative medicine can be trusted. Why not participate in science based medicine and if that fails, try the alternative route, what have you got to lose by then?

Quaestor said...

Yeah, but Darwin is smiling...

Eugenics is interested in preventing the loonies breeding. If that cancer-afflicted woman has a living child allowing her to commit vicarious suicide won't please Darwin at all.

Wilbur said...

She is saving a lot of money ...

Quaestor said...

Control is pretty important for some patients, and this lady is controlling her fate...

Hardly. No more than a desperate gambler drawing to an inside straight.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

John Henry-

Haven't seen you around here recently. Are you in Puerto Rico? If so, how are things there?

Stephen Taylor said...

Dump this one, and start looking for a sane girlfriend pronto.

mockturtle said...

Interesting. A good friend was diagnosed with breast cancer about 20 years ago. Because she is an 'alternative medicine' believer and I am a conventional medicine adherent, we went round and round about her treatment plan. She refused surgery, chemo and radiation. She has somehow kept the disease at bay for twenty years but it now has spread into her lymph nodes and she is seeking further 'alternatives'. We don't discuss therapy any more because we will never agree.

OTOH, a neighbor had chemo for six weeks for breast cancer and died from a ruptured spleen [probably chemo-related]. So I no longer feel inclined to advise anyone on his/her course of treatment. At my age I'd hope I would refuse aggressive treatment but no way would I choose the kinds of quackery my friend used.

MayBee said...

Reminds me of Steve Jobs.

I had an acquaintance- actually more a friend of a friend, who did this. Talking about the cancer was forbidden because it brought the cancer out into the world and gave it attention and life. Raw foods only. And it was hard watching my friends watch their friend head toward certain death.

Terry di Tufo said...

There are excellent treatments for breast cancer. Like others I had a close friend who refused conventional (proven) treatments. Her funeral was 10 years ago.

Gospace said...

roadgeek said...
Dump this one, and start looking for a sane girlfriend pronto.


I agree. You don't dump a GF because she gets sick, but it's perfectly rational to dump her should she demonstrate severe stupidity, or as roadgeek put it, insanity.

Kevin said...

If she keeps this up, she’s going to die

I hate to break it to the writer, but we're all going to die.

ga6 said...

register her with the Neptune Society...clean her house for her...

kentuckyliz said...

Don't dump her, engage in conscious uncoupling.

Earnest Prole said...

Steve Jobs 'regretted trying to beat cancer with alternative medicine for so long'

“Walter Isaacson [author of Steve Jobs’ authorized biography] said that before he died the 56-year-old had come to realize that he had made a mistake.

“’We talked about this a lot,’ Isaacson told a television interview. ‘He wanted to talk about it, how he regretted it. I think he felt he should have been operated on sooner.’

“Asked why ‘such a smart man could do such a stupid thing,’ Isaacson said: ‘I think he felt: if you ignore something you don't want to exist, you can have magical thinking. It had worked for him in the past. He would regret it.’”

John henry said...

Iib,

Yup, here in PR. Did not get blown away though the eye, with 150mph winds passed over my house.

If you find Puerto del Rey marina on the line between Fajardo and Ceiba on Google Earth, I am right across the street.

Still no electricity in 60%off the island but I've got a generator and we are lucky to have running water. 30-40% still does not. Maybe for December or January.

Can't do much work because most of my local clients are in crisis mode and I can't travel and leave my wife alone.

Until a few days ago closest cell signal was 10-15 miles away.

I'm lucky. No damage or injury to any family or our houses. A lot of people, mostly those who could least afford it lost everything.

Eventually I'll be back to my usual verbosity here.

John Henry

John henry said...

Btw

For scale on the electricity problem the estimate is 50,000 power poles to be replaced. These are broken and does not count those knocked out of kilter and can be straightened

We need to replace 6,500 miles of transmission and distribution wire. That is in addition to cable on the broken poles that can be restructuring.

The amount of help we are getting from you all in the upper 50,in electric and other aid is phenomenal and deeply appreciated. I give President Trump full props. He has the vote of most every Puerto Rican in the US in 2020 if he runs.

Elnuevadia.com/english is the main local paper (this is an English edition. Paper is in Spanish) has some pretty good coverage

John Henry

Clyde said...

Can't fix stupid.

I hope that's not too pithy.

Bad Lieutenant said...

God bless you all, JH. Were you aware of a little controversy here, that some small contractor from Montana, got a big contract doing this emergency power work in PR, had its contract pulled because I guess commie mayorette gotta commie?

Hope everything happens for the best.

Clyde said...

@ John Henry

I can sympathize, my friend. Here in SW Florida, Irma knocked out power for several days, which is bad enough. I can't even fathom losing it for months. The problem is that Puerto Rico is an island. Here in Florida, once the power lines were back up, we were good to go. But when the power plants themselves are knocked out... Well, you're screwed. We could have gotten power from neighboring areas or states if our local power plant had been knocked out, but Puerto Rico doesn't have that option.

Michael K said...

"Because she is an 'alternative medicine' believer and I am a conventional medicine adherent, we went round and round about her treatment plan. "

About 30 years ago, a cardiologist friend of mine had a sister who angrily rejected all conventional medicine.

She had a real fixation about it.

After several years, I put a subclavian IV in her as she was dying. Sh didn't object to that because it was for pain relief.

I never figured out if it was a family thing with her.

Earnest Prole said...

I suppose this is as good a place as any to say how much I prefer the old Dear Prudence, Emily Yoffe, to the new one, Mallory Ortberg. Old Prudie was smart, funny, morally serious, and (the rarest of qualities for a journalist today) courageous in the face of PC bullshit, as her piece on campus “rape culture” demonstrates.

John henry said...

Bad lt,

Whitefish is pure political bullshit of the worst kind. Our dumb as dogs hit Governor canceled their contract even thouh

The were the only company willing to start working without a 25mm prepayment

They were flying Antonio so (like a c5 but bigger) with bucket trucks, poles helicopters and crews into Roosevelt roads 3 or 4 days after the wind stopped

They kept bringing in more crews and equipment

They are ahead of schedule and budget

The local paper Elnuevadia.com looked dt contract pricing and labor rates and found it comparable to 4 other bidders

He canceled the contract even though it canceling it, in his words, delays restoration by 8 to 12 weeks.

His reason? "to avoid distractions"

So a million people will sit in the dark because our asshole governor has been PUSSYWHIPPED by the asshole mayor of San Juan.

Do I sound pissed off? That's probably because I am.

John Henry

John henry said...

Antonov aircraft

ccscientist said...

I know 2 women who did this healing with foods and crystals stuff. They both lasted about a year (did not know each other). It is pure suicide. And breast cancer has a 95% cure rate, the highest of any cancer, which makes it extra stupid.

Jamie said...

My goodness, if you want to live, why not do both? Medical medicine doesn't preclude eating vegan (as long as you're doing it right and getting adequate nourishment) or opening your chakras...

Then again, when I had to do a report on a noted psychologist in high school, I picked William James, the functionalist. His philosophy was to use "that which works" (which also explains why I'm a conservative).

Ignorance is Bliss said...

John Henry-

Glad to hear everything is as good as can be expected for you. Here's hoping things are back to normal soon, then better than normal not too long after that. For both you and all your neighbors.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

I suppose this is as good a place as any to say how much I prefer the old Dear Prudence, Emily Yoffe, to the new one, Mallory Ortberg

I agree, but I'm still mourning the great Margo Howard, the first in that role.

Anonymous said...

Wegmans has this segment of people well-targeted with their slogan on healthy/organic products, "food that makes you feel good". The food may not actually be any healthier or make people any healthier than the conventional version, but if paying a lot of money for the buzz word salad of the latest health fad is your thing, the store definitely has you covered.

A lot of people don't trust doctors. I suspect there's some history there, but at the same time, I'm not inclined to deny people their choice of treatment, or lack thereof, so long as it comports with the basic Hippocratic idea of doing no harm (in the sense that it won't make the situation any worse than it would be otherwise).

People are quite free to turn to all kinds of alternative nonsense, but they should not be surprised if the end result comes up the way most of these diseases came up before the modern medical age - death. Not everyone who turns to alternative treatments will die, just as not everyone who accepts modern treatments will live. The exceptions to the rule on both sides will continue to give alt-medicine life.

John Nowak said...

>If that cancer-afflicted woman has a living child allowing her to commit vicarious suicide won't please Darwin at all.

Unless the kid can learn from a bad example.

Fernandinande said...

Michael K pontificated...
About 30 years ago, a cardiologist friend of mine had a sister who angrily rejected all conventional medicine.


That was certainly a fascinating story, and I especially appreciated the moral lesson: don't be the sibling of a cardiologist.

the so-called 'medical establishment' is corrupt...

If you consider rent-seeking to be a form of corruption, then it is corrupt. Extremely corrupt; other industries could take lessons, even lawyers ("gosh darn it, people can still represent themselves!")

But that doesn't mean that "woo woo" treatments work, it just means that you're paying, in various ways, far more than you should.

TestTube said...

My suggestion?

Run, don't walk, to someone other than a newspaper columnist for advice. Probably several someones

There are some very wise, experienced, talented therapists out there who can give you excellent practical advice on all facets of a problem like this. Newspaper columnists never have, and never will, number among them.

Have I benefited from the occasional "check-up from the neck up"? Heavens yes. Would I ever refer ANY problem, large or small, to a newspaper advice columnist? Heck no.

Martin said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVV3QQ3wjC8