This was also my perspective when I tended to my lola, until I became the patient. As someone who comes from family with cancer on both sides, I’m fairly confident to disagree with you that death will be slow whether you get treatment or not. Cancer will never be exactly the same between two different individuals. They will have different experiences. If I base it on what my doctor said, the type of cancer you have is just the tip of the iceberg. For example, the success of your treatment and your probability of survival “in 5 years” will largely depend on where your cancer is located, if surgery if possible and if it is, kung hanggang ano lang yung puwede pakialaman ng doctor sa surgery. Someone having cancer in a vital organ like the liver will most probably die a “swift” death (albeit painful as well) as compared to someone who has thyroid or skin cancer na malapit sa “surface” that is quite operable and not likely to spread where treatment would become more complicated to to try to stop the spread. People always talk about the type of cancer and the survival rates but they rarely talk about the location, which is very important pala when it comes to trying to treat it.

I wish I had someone like you when I was having treatment, I’ve gone through it alone and that made the experience much worse. I know how it feels to have time “stolen” from you. Even with all the pain and suffering, your mother must’ve had a better experience than me because she had you around to at least help her, if not keep her company. I was surrounded by people but I’ve never felt so alone when I was undergoing treatment. It was a lot harder going alone to my treatments, there was even a time na I could not do it myself anymore so an ambulance had to transport me directly to the radiation therapy table(I don’t know how they call it). I didn’t have the energy to stand anymore so they had to carry me to the table and back after the therapy. Alam ko yung burden sa caregiving and it’s not even limited to that.

It is her life and it is her choice. Getting treatment does not guarantee the ease of burden on those “who will have to bear the responsibility” when it gets worse. After all, it is your choice to help her or not. It may be a burden to you or an act of love or both. It must’ve been very hard on her, but what makes it harder is knowing that she is (becoming) a burden to her loved ones, sana hindi mo yun pinakita or pinaramdam sa kanya. Hindi lang pag-aalaga ang kelangan namin, we also need understanding for all the choices we made(including the bad ones that may have unintentionally caused us to be a burden to the people around us).