Your Treatment Choices Are Your Own – and Others’ Are Theirs

As any cancer patient or caregiver can tell you, everyone has an opinion about how to treat your cancer.

And many of those people will let you know what they think. Whether you want to know it or not.

I will get my bias out of the way: I am biased in favor of listening to doctors and following treatments proven based on evidence. I fully recognize the limitations of medical science and knowledge. And I know they don’t work all the time. And can be toxic.

But millions of Americans are now cancer survivors because of them. So, when I say I respect others’ choices, please don’t interpret that to mean that I encourage anyone to disregard medical advice. I don’t. But back to the topic.

There are a range of opinions

I have witnessed raging online and in-person debates among patients about bladder removal versus continuing BCG treatments. Or about whether a given natural treatment was worth trying as a complement to standard treatment.

And I felt almost harassed when my husband was ill by acquaintances who swore by a so-called “cure.” And then there’s the claim that cancer treatments stem from a medical-industrial-big-pharm conspiracy to keep people sick and sell more drugs.

Treatment decisions are all very personal

Here’s the thing: yes, it is a free country and we are all entitled to our own opinion and our own choices about what treatment to pursue. It is ultimately the patient’s choice. And I believe the patient’s choice should be respected regardless of what the rest of us may think of it. (It is especially tough on patients when family members don’t agree with their choices.)

Different approached to treating stage IV bladder cancer

I entirely respect a person who opts for full-on standard treatment for stage IV bladder cancer. Essentially, the “give me everything you got, Doc” version. I also entirely respect a very sick patient who opts to forego treatment or stop treatment because it is causing too many other problems.

Some patients – Stage IV or not – opt to use food, vitamins and supplements, and other complementary treatments in addition to standard treatment. And that’s great if they feel good about it.

Bladder cancer requires many decision points

One of the toughest decision points in bladder cancer seems to be for the patient who is faced with whether to have his or her bladder removed.

It is such a big surgery and it has such a quality-of-life impact (but do note that many patients report being so happy they did it and that they live a normal life afterward).

Deciding whether to have bladder removal surgery

The questions of whether and when to have the surgery are two of the toughest that patients face. And people offer their opinions there, too. Some patients insist to others that it is an extreme and unnecessary surgery. Others swear it is lifesaving. And they are both right.

Some people have the surgery and still end up with stage IV cancer later. Others never have it and their cancer never progresses. Until medicine gets better at identifying which patients’ cancer will progress and which won’t, it is really a choice based on the patient’s preference and the doctor’s recommendation.

Treatment choices are not 'one size fits all'

And that’s the catch: the “right” answer for you isn’t the right answer for everyone. If you want to tell others about your experience and your perspective, do it. It is valuable and others want to hear about it. But just remember their disease may be different, their health may be different, and countless other factors may be different.

I encourage patients to seek multiple medical opinions. This gives them personalized advice from experts who treat a lot of bladder cancer. If those experts disagree, it is the patient’s decision. And no one else’s.