alt Hacker NewsI would heavily disagree with this - it depends entirely on the cancer you get. If it's something slow growing that would take a decade plus to kill you, sure - just trying to treat it would be worse than letting it ride.
But my father died of cancer nearing age 80, (most likely mesothelioma, though we didn't do heavy tests as it was discovered late), and it was incredibly painful and miserable for him. He had fast growing tumors in his ribs, forcing bone to spike out and hit his lungs, the tumors that grew in his lungs caused constant pneumonia and kept leaving him unable to get enough oxygen to his brain to communicate for hours at a time.
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Would he have had a better time at 45 not seing you growing and missing 35 years of life?
I'm not saying it's good to get cancer when you're old, I'm just saying if you had the choice no one would chose to get it earlier.
Maybe it’s that I have young kids, but even knowing my death at 80 would be horrible, I’d choose that over a painless death at 45 in a heartbeat. I’d beg and pray for that outcome.
Unfortunately a lot of us will die in comparable ways if we are lucky enough to get that old. My grandmother was healthy & mentally with it until stroking out in her garden one day at the age of 90. That is the best any of us can hope for and the reality will almost certainly be far more painful and prolonged.
That sounds far better than dying at 45 unless you have an extraordinarily unpleasant life in the interim