Can you refuse cancer treatment even if it would cure you?

[Jinglestreet]

I'd rather not post specifics as it'll become outing. My question is as the title, can you flatly refuse cancer treatment? Say the cancer is curable and in a middle aged person. it's caught at a fairly early stage and prognosis is excellent, is refusing treatment seen as an option or could family/next of kin go down the "not of sound mind" route even if the person was of perfectly sound mind? The cancer will eventually lead to death. Would doctors support treatment refusal?

Unfortunately I can relate to what you're saying. I wish I had refused radiotherapy like you did and I struggle to get past hating myself for being so compliant and swept along by it all. I think I would refuse treatment if I got cancer again although that's easy to say now. It's not even the treatments themselves I dread - I don't want to be in that environment and deal with doctors anymore.

My mil refused treatment, she was scared and didn’t want to travel to London to have it and because of the nature of the treatment she would have had to travel alone and stay on her own in isolation, this frightened her.
It shortened her life dramatically. She would most probably still be with us which makes us all very sad but it was her life, her body and her decision and we all respected her decision, doctors included.

@Jinglestreet As I understand it it's hard for them to 'make' someone have treatment, they probably wouldn't be able to force you via a court etc.

But I wholeheartedly recommend that someone offered treatment that could potentially save their life, takes it. If the person doesn't see life as worth living they could benefit from treatment for depression.

My parent did, basically by refusing to go to the GP in the first place!

They’d had a horrible accident in their late 50’s, and found the stay in hospital and the care they received there so traumatic that they wouldn’t consider any sort of medical appointments at all.
When they became ill they just wouldn’t discuss it. We assume it was cancer of some sort. They were late 60’s when they died. And actually, having watched other relatives go through fruitless cancer treatments or successful cancer treatments but then developing raging dementia in their dotage I’m not sure it was the wrong decision for them.
I was late 20’s when they died, but I’m sure if we’d been young, they’d have thought differently and gritted their teeth through any treatment offered.

You don't want to die of cancer OP, it's really not a pleasant way to go.

My Mum suffered months and months of extreme pain as it ate away at her bones, and my nan was literally vomiting faeces in her last few weeks.

This really isn't the easy way out that you think it is.

It's free, unlike paying a solicitor to do Health and Welfare Power Of Attorney.

Just to clarify for the readership, you do NOT have to pay a solicitor to do a Lasting Power of Attorney. You can fill in the forms yourself, get them witnessed, and deal with registering them yourself.

And if they do not meet the requirements the Office of the Public Guardian will send them back to you to be redone. The latter isn't ideal if it happens as it causes delay, and there is the risk that what you have written will 'pass', but not do what you exactly intended. So it is a good idea to read the notes diligently and consult a solicitor if you have any questions or if you are trying to write anything other than a very simple one.

IANAL but do have experience of getting them done and helping family members to do similar. And I'm not averse to paying a solicitor whenever I need one, but sometimes one doesn't.

This also happens to people who have treatment - after the horror of treatment, then this still happens

though what you describe is another great reason we need legalised assisted dying.

Of course you can refuse treatment as an adult @Jinglestreet.

You have volition and can just say no to anything you do not want.

That's not their job to.

They'll respect whatever decision you make.

Does it matter? The doctor will have forgotten you as soon as you leave the consulting room. S/he won't give you a second thought.

My OH refused to have a stem cell transplant as part of his treatment plan for his cancer. Nothing happened, consultations and other treatments carried on as if nothing had happened. Was never mentioned again. That was 5 years ago, he's still on his lifetime cancer drugs treatment to keep him alive.

When I was younger we had a family friend who was diagnosed with an early stage, easily treated cancer. Doctors were very optimistic of full recovery as it had been caught so early through an X-ray for something else. She refused any treatment, and ultimately died of the cancer. Her family and friends were devastated, she had kids in their teens. Her husband had lost his first wife to cancer too.

If she ever explained her rationale for not wanting to be treated then I never heard it. She obviously had her reasons but as a previous poster mentioned, it felt like we were watching a slow suicide in the early days, until it metastasised and then nothing could have been done anyway. Devastating all round.

@nonumbersinthisname, presumably that was her choice though, for whatever reason.

None of us are going to live forever, so it's perfectly rational to reject invasive treatment. It's not up to anyone else to dictate to a person what they may or may not do with their body.

Tim Minchin talks a lot of sense, even if he is a comedian.
We have different definitions of ´proof’. A history of use can mean something is medically interesting. Worth testing properly.
I didn’t mean to belittle anyone. I meant to tell someone to fuck off because they were suggesting alternative medicine as cancer treatment (not as a complement to actual medicine but as a replacement).
If you trying a treatment that has not been proven to be effective (and yes I know there are shades and degrees of ´effective), then the very least you should expect is that the trial is being properly documented so that in the future, drs will be able to tell if that treatment is useful or not.
Selling or promoting things as cures or effective treatments when they are not or we don’t know if they are is extremely unethical and I am not going to apologize for pointing that out.

Oh I know, my Mum had treatment, my Nan decided against it.

My Mum, the first time round, was in a similar position to OP, caught early, good chance of a cure. Yes, chemo sucked but she got an extra 25 years before it came back again. The second time we knew it was a matter of time but she wanted the extra years with her grandkids, so she had chemo and radio again. She found it hard a lot of the time, but she didn't regret it.

My Nan was 75 and decided she didn't want to go through chemo, but was begging for it by the end, but obviously too late then. She also begged to for someone to help her die, I desperately wish assisted dying was legal.

I'm not saying that refusing treatment is never the right choice. I'm just saying that in a situation like OPs where it's been caught early, cancer would not be the way I'd choose to end my life.

Prognosis and treatment options are surely confidential between Dr and patient. So family/next of kin are not automatically entitled to this information, it's the decision of the person diagnosed with cancer how much information they want to disclose to loved ones. This avoid any pressure or judgement.

@Lurkylurks

Please don't blame yourself or think that you are weak. We are conditioned into accepting what medical professionals tell us and they do make it so hard to ask searching questions. I could fill a note book with all the stupid/untrue/condescending things that medical people have said to me over the last two years. Like you I wish that perhaps that I had said no to treatment but this type of hindsight is the unhealthy companion of regret so I try not to think it often as I had good reasons for accepting treatment at the time.

Lots of non western used medicines have been proved to work through a history of use.

Nope. If they had a strong evidence base they would be made into medications and evidence based doctors would use them. This is what happens with botanically-derived medications that work; the active ingredient is extracted to standardise it and make it more potent.

If people rely on complementary treatments for cancer then they will die.

Any improvements in actual outcomes people have are as a result of the evidence based treatment they have.

https://www.macmillan.org.uk/cancer-information-and-support/treatment/your-treatment-options/making-treatment-decisions

Some information which may be useful OP.
Please do not be swayed by some of yhe inaccurate information that is being shared on this thread.

There are a number of specific cancer charities such as Breast Cancer now, Prostate Cancer UK, Blood Cancer now who have dedicated support lines where you can talk through your decision making process with experienced HCPs. If you were able to find a specific website and phone number you could have a chat with them.

Your friend may also have a clinical nurse specialist who can talk through any of the issues that are impacting the decision making.

@Jinglestreet
There are many reasons why somebody would not to go through treatment that could potentially save their life. I can think of the following:
Scared of hospitals/ white coats ( that’s a big thumbs up from me)
Have seen a close friend or family member go through similar treatment, which didn’t go to plan/ was very painful and they don’t want to experience the same
Worries about life after treatment/surgery. Impotence, disfigurement, quality of life, etc
Religious beliefs

These are big and justifiable worries, but there are people out there who will listen to you worries.

A macmillan nurse will have been assigned to you/your friend. Talk to them. Join the Macmillan cancer forums. There are lots of people who have gone through similar. The support you get is great. It’s especially helpful when you don’t want to talk to family members/friends.
There is help and support out there. X

Your body, your choice.

If someone that isn't extremely elderly or with other severe health problems has an early, treatable cancer and doesn't take the treatment they're either mentally ill, stupid or both.

I know it's nerve wracking for people to face treatment though.

If someone considers not having treatment at first, it's often due to fear/adjusting to the idea and they eventually come round to having it (hopefully not too late.)

Sorry for what you are going through @Jinglestreet

If someone that isn't extremely elderly or with other severe health problems has an early, treatable cancer and doesn't take the treatment they're either mentally ill, stupid or both.

How dare you. If you work anywhere near patients you really shouldn't be.

Are you like an 18 year old who has never had a loved one go through cancer treatment? The aggressive kinds I mean.

@Bobbotgegrinch

I don't think that the OP thinks that it's the easy way out. I think that this comes down to 'just because we can do something doesn't mean we should'. If I had not had treatment then I would be dying from breast cancer which may or may not have been painless. I had treatment and now I will die from lung cancer instead. Our hospital is so overstretched that I'm not even being given regular scans anyway - I've been put on a "if you start feeling really ill then see your GP and they'll refer you" footing.
As I said in one of my posts, my consultant actually refused to discuss the no or minimal treatment option. The leaflet about breast cancer had just one sentence in it about not having treatment which read " some people choose not to have any treatment" - that was it and I didn't even find that until after surgery.