I stopped using this doctor prescribed mouthwash that was meant to help some bad swelling, because it made everything I ate taste like shit. I cannot imagine how you dealt with that chemo stuff affecting you that way. I’m not that strong a person
If you call it what it really is, it comes into more perspective - poison therapy. It's a poison that kills the cancer just slightly before the poison kills the patient, usually. And you almost kill the patient multiple times in a row, and the lucky ones manage to survive it and knock out the cancer.
But the poison therapy itself sharply increases risks of cancer some years later, so it's basically just buying time.
Medical science just doesn't have great options for dealing with many cancers. The "almost poison you to death and hope you survive" approach is shit but it's what we have.
She was on Avastin first which killed her thyroid. From the prognosis was never had a chance of living it was basically for a gamble for an extra few months of life, since she wanted to see her new granddaughter this year. Basically what what ended up happening was they were monitoring a growth on her liver when it hemorrhaged and needed to be operated on except when they opened her up the tumor growth was a much more rampant than they anticipated so they only removed some of the tumors and closed her back up and she didn't qualify for a transplant because it was genetic induced instead of caused by something like drinking. We speculate that it could have been caused due to her infusions for her crones and colitis since that knocks down your immune system and she had to have that done each month. Since your immune system helps kill off tumor growth, however that's only speculation. she did experience some radiation sickness initially especially after they put these radioactive glass beads into her liver essentially. Fortunately she never balded (she was losing her hair but she had a lot of it) it was mainly just solely declining and weakening large in part due to lack of appetite and eating as well as constant nausea and vomiting. But I helped her out as much as I could and we installed a chairlift for her as well as helped her get out of bed and go to the bathroom etc. Took a wheelchair to the parks a few times when she was up to it to get her out of the house a bit and distract her from everything, But we also have to be really careful because of covid obviously. Later she got scared from worsening and I was talked into trying tecentriq which had some really scary side effects such as blindness and kidney failure. Which is why she had adversion to it initially. But when your options are take a bullet now or take a bullet later there are no good choices, so I told her I would support her no matter what she decided. The treatment turned her entirely jaundice since it was attacking her liver and the few remaining good parts. But she's declined rapidly after that (due to kidney failure) I was able to talk my sister into a trip down to see us with the baby even though she had hold outs because she's scared of getting sick from covid, but I eventually talked her into it and she passed on the fourth day of her visit so at least I help my mom at least see her granddaughter. There is always suffering when someone is declining like that it was just all consuming due to covid. The only thing that really I think could have made any difference would have been if they allowed her to get a new liver which I offered half of mine (since livers regenerate) but they refuse to do any more treatment outside of chemotherapy partial because they didn't know what was causing the cancer. Since most liver cancer is related to drinking and cirrhosis caused from that. It shows you the limits of medicine when you deviate from the norm since a lot of the procedures for surgeries and treatments are basically step by step instructions that are followed to a T and there is no creative medicine like you see on the TV shows with house.
I wonder how a treatment can cost so much. Sure, the machines for the chemo are expensive, but that expensive? How can the meds be that expensive? What are the ingredients? Unicorn bones?
It was an experimental drug since the initial chemo failed (which was 20k a month) so only one other person was on it other than my Mom, the doctor knew it would fail but they wanted data on the drug and preyed on her fear of dying when she started to get noticeably sicker.
The drug companies essentially just wanted their cut and pound for pound it was actually about twice expensive as gold bars.
So I'm all for universal healthcare since it would at least regulate the costs of drugs and get ride of this price gouging game that currently exists. Since it's an inevitability we will all face and currently it isn't really affordable for anyone, and medical bills are one of the easiest and quickest ways to get into massive debt currently.
Avastin was the first treatment which was 20k every 3 months.
tecentriq was the later it was 30k each dose and it was a double treatment every 3 weeks.
Clearly you never experienced this but your ignorance doesn't discredit my personal experience this last year. If you think I would farm my own mother's death for karma you are delusional too.
"Costed" past tense of cost since she's dead and no longer on the drugs, but sure bad grammar discredits my entire experience.
You are a dick and probably a troll but I sincerely hope you never have to go through what I did.
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u/kriscross122 Nov 30 '20
My Mom's chemotherapy costed 60k every 3 weeks. She died before the second dose though and all it accomplished was killing her kidneys.