Wow, that was fast...

from JoeUser Forums

Only yesterday the news circulated that Elizabeth Edwards' cancer treatments would be ceased as the doctors had determined there was no longer any chance of those treatments helping her.  Today the news hit that her fight was over as she had, in fact, succumbed to cancer.  I know it was a long fight, so in reality it wasn't that fast, and yet it seemed that way given the timing of the news yesterday followed with the announcement of her death today.

There have been other discussions and conversations here about cancer and its impact.  Site and forum members that have been lost to it.  Friends and relatives that have been lost to it.  Friends and relatives that are losing to it.  It seems inescapable, and again it makes me sad.

I wish I could say that there may be significant impact in the fight against cancers of all forms within my lifetime, or perhaps my children's lifetimes, but I'm not so confident that will be the case.  I know that there continues to be a lot of research into these diseases, but the amount of real progress seems to be just barely scratching the surface of the problem.  I hope that I'm wrong, and really hope that everyone that has been affected by cancer can someday look back at this time as being the beginning of the end of cancer as something to be concerned with.

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Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top

My sympathies to Elizabeth's family.

I watched some fairly unflattering video of her ranting like a banshee in a parking lot some years ago.  I didn't know about her BC at the time....but looking back it all makes sense.  She was dying, losing her beauty, and her husband couldn't wait with being bothered for her to die.  In fact (if you read my blog, ahem!~) he rolled up into first class and she was shoved into the luggage compartment on the train.

Bastard.

Cancer is shifty, and different at the DNA level in so many people.  I don't think it will ever be cured.  They can find ways to mediate side effects, and prolong life...but even that 95% survival rate for breast cancer survivors you always see on tv is disingenuous, well frankly, a flat out lie, statistics at their worst.

I'm stage 3 and my prognosis (if you believe in such things, which I do not because they only measure a very small portion of the disease in the body, so prognosis's tend to be VERY best case scenario.) is 56% survival, meaning knowing what they know about my cancer right now (Which isn't much because they don't do alot of extra scans, none in fact) is that I have over a 50/50 chance of being alive in 5 years...that fluctuates a little with treatment, but not enough to make me go WOO HOO, or whew.

I have lines in the sand, and that's about it.  But who knows what we'll do for survival when it gets down to the dying?  Life, the shell is so fragile, but the spirit, the will, is fierce.

That is why Elizabeth raged in that parking lot, and that is why she fought so long.

RIP Elizabeth Edwards.

 

Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top

There is a lot to say about hope. Elizabeth Edwards is not the first one we heard of where they gave her no hope, and she passed quickly.  Chemo takes a lot out of you, and without a will to live or hope, I can see where your body just gives up.

I am saddened by her passing.  Not for who she was, but for the valiant effort she made to live until the end.  In that respect, she was a hero.

Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

She was  good woman who had incredible love for her family.  She did the best she could do with the hand she was dealt, including trying to be as peaceable as could be with the cheating husband, for the sake of her children.  

I feel for her children right now.  She was the heart of that family.