Skip to main content
Skip to main navigation
Skip to talk navigation

Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Saved Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

AIBU?

To hate this man who said 'cancer is the best way to die'

216 replies

Sallystyle · 01/01/2015 13:21

Stop wasting billions trying to cure cancer, it's the best way to die,' says former BMJ editor

So death from cancer is the best ... You can say goodbye, reflect on your life, leave last messages, perhaps visit special places for a last time, listen to favourite pieces of music, read loved poems, and prepare, according to your beliefs, to meet your maker or enjoy eternal oblivion.

Well, fuck him I say.

OP posts:

Report

Mintyy · 01/01/2015 13:23

Excuse me, best way to die in childhood/teens/any time before about 85 ... really??

ArsenicFaceCream · 01/01/2015 13:23

Bloody hell.

MarjorieMelon · 01/01/2015 13:23

What a complete and utter arse. :(

ChickyEgg · 01/01/2015 13:24

what an insensitive twat

lentilpot · 01/01/2015 13:25

Yup. Fuck that shit.

Sallystyle · 01/01/2015 13:25

blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2014/12/31/richard-smith-dying-of-cancer-is-the-best-death/

sorry, forgot link.

OP posts:

Nomama · 01/01/2015 13:26

I suspect there was more context that may have meant his comment wasn't quite that brutal!

FreeSpirit89 · 01/01/2015 13:27

Idiot!

I doubt if my grandfather came back from the dear he'd be keen to relive the experience. Bed bound for 3 months, housebound for 6. Unable to read or watch television die to lack of concentration.

Oh and I'm sure he would enjoy the shame of having to let his granddaughter wipe his bottom after he became unable to control his bowels.

What a twat!

Nomama · 01/01/2015 13:28

Ah! Having read the link, there it is.... the context!

DurhamDurham · 01/01/2015 13:31

Maybe in the films it is a chance to say goodbye to family and friends, a chance to put right things that you have said and done. In reality it can be a horrible death, a person is kept sedated with huge amounts of pain relief in their system just to try to keep the pain at bay. I speak as a Respite Co-ordinator for a charity, I would not wish this death on anyone.

hesterton · 01/01/2015 13:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MissHJ · 01/01/2015 13:32

Yeah because my father really wanted to die 2 weeks after he turned 31 leaving a 10 year old daughter behind. What an insensitive thing to say

Sallystyle · 01/01/2015 13:33

Context or not he is talking a lot of shit in my opinion!

I wish my ex had time to reflect on his life and have all these last experiences that he talked about. He didn't, because he was bed bound and in agony even with pain meds and when they gave him enough morphine to keep him out of pain it just made him sleep all the time and then he became delirious.

Having four years of treatment, transplants and watching our children watch him die was brutal.

His view is very romantic, but not close to most people's reality of dying from cancer.

OP posts:

Nancy66 · 01/01/2015 13:33

he's not saying cancer is a right laugh is he? He's saying that he considers it a preferable way to die than from a sudden death or something like dementia.

AllMimsyWereTheBorogoves · 01/01/2015 13:33

Read the article. He's not saying cancer is great. Obviously. He's saying we all have to die some way or other and there is a lot to be said for knowing it's coming and having time to prepare - if you are getting good palliative care and pain relief, obviously.

On a related subject, this Reith Lecture on Radio 4 a few weeks ago (by Dr Atul Gawande) was really excellent on end of life care. Genuinely uplifting.

limitedperiodonly · 01/01/2015 13:33

Someone with terminal lung cancer said the same thing to me. He saw it as a chance to get his affairs in order, say his goodbyes and splurge on the car he'd always wanted but never bought because it was frivolous.

So he and his wife had a last summer tooling around in a gloriously impractical Morgan. Bittersweet.

He had no illusions about pain but hoped it would be managed. He acknowledged that he might be being selfish and that if he dropped dead from a massive heart attack it might make it easier on his family who could comfort themselves that his suffering would be brief. But he said: 'It's me who's dying, so I'm going to be selfish.'

I think that's what the BMJ person meant. So YABU but I understand that his words hurt.

And there are worse deaths.

Sallystyle · 01/01/2015 13:34

I read the article here originally and copy and pasted it in the title exactly as it was written. I didn't misrepresent anything myself.

www.itv.com/news/2015-01-01/stop-wasting-billions-trying-to-cure-cancer-its-the-best-way-to-die-says-former-bmj-editor/

OP posts:

motherinferior · 01/01/2015 13:34

He doesn't say stop trying to cure cancer. It is an interesting piece looking at the different ways of dying. And his point about prolonging life at the expense of quality is a good one.

My mother has a rather nasty cancer, btw; I am not completely unaffected by the disease.

motherinferior · 01/01/2015 13:36

You linked to a report on his piece, not the piece itself.

Goldmandra · 01/01/2015 13:36

I think anything that encourages us to think more about the quality of death we could have is a good thing but i happen to disagree with him.

If dying of cancer were always about having time to say goodbye, visiting special places one last time, saying the words we need to say and our loved ones need to hear followed by a rapid, pain-free, dignified and peaceful decline into oblivion, I could begin to accept his view but it isn't often like that.

I've watched loved ones go through terrible pain, fear, guilt and loss of dignity as they died of cancer. It most certainly isn't better than a sudden death.

motherinferior · 01/01/2015 13:36

Ah, sorry, you linked to both.

expatinscotland · 01/01/2015 13:37

The trouble is, depending on the type, death, no matter at what age, from it can be agonising and quite protracted, very far from a chance to say goodbye, reflect, visit places, etc.

limitedperiodonly · 01/01/2015 13:37

Now I see that you posted after reading the article I've changed my mind.

YABVU. It's his view. It's not shit. And hatred?

Sallystyle · 01/01/2015 13:37

Maybe I am just too close to it after my kids losing their father and two granddads just last year to cancer to see it objectively.

His views didn't not match any of their experiences. None of them were well enough to do any of this preparing etc

and let's stop wasting billions trying to cure cancer, potentially leaving us to die a much more horrible death

That is what the ITV news website quoted him as saying.

OP posts:

AllMimsyWereTheBorogoves · 01/01/2015 13:38

It's not a very long article and it's very easy to read. Pasting in a couple of sentences is misrepresenting his point. Yes, he does say that spending billions on trying to cure cancer might leave us all at risk of dying a worse death. So it might. There's been a lot of cancer in my family and I'm under no illusions about how grim it is, but I'd still rather die of that than a slow decline over many years from dementia.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.