Help me get some perspective

tensandunits_2

Poppy3008 wrote: »

Excuse me? As a nurse I object!

Yes, I expect you do! I mentioned nurses because 1) that's what the thread is about and 2) people normally expect nurses to be caring and compassionate, as opposed to nasty and vindictive. Sadly, experience as well as anecdotal evidence does not bear that out.

It sounds like this was an ex-nurse in any case.

tensandunits_2

tooldle wrote: »

My experience is that the NHS will only be very frank with a patient about life expectancy, if the patient asks them to be. Most patients are not able to deal with the frank approach.

Fair enough but the lady concerned is not this former nurse's patient. This former nurse chose to tell a terminally ill woman (who's supposed to be her friend!) things that she surely knew would serve no purpose other than to worry and upset the woman.

zagfles

Forget the motivation or sitting in judgement on the ex-nurse, really, who cares? Concentrate on your friend - one thing I know I found very helpful when I thought a close relative was dying was to sign up to a forum for their condition and read and occasionally contribute.

Now statistically most of the posts will be from people who exceed the normal life expectancy for the disease, for obvious reasons, and seeing people outlive, sometimes very long over what they were told or is the "norm", can give such a boost. I found it helpful anyway.

Best wishes.

cavework

Time frame is a few years according to her doctors..
My best friend had stage 4 lung cancer..we had less than 4 months to talk about the outcome from diagnosis to death.
During this time we talked about everything including her funeral arrangements before she died.. We laughed about some things she was so brave , convinced there would be a cure, .after 1 month the truth hit home and I got a call to please come round now ( I lived next door)... I held her as she sobbed her heart out
3 months later
.I asked her if she was scared and she said yes , especially when she woke up at 3am in the morning alone , knowing there was no way back. She was one of the most brave and pragmatic people I have ever had the privilege to know. New years eve her legs refused to support her anymore ...she told me she had 'had enough, she was tired of fighting' . She was taken into hospital that night and died one week later... 2 days after my Father..
The thing I am trying to get across is that many people who are diagnosed as terminally ill really do want to face up to the consequences, they really do want people to stop being afraid to discuss the effects and the final outcome..Your friend is lucky , she has been given a timeframe of a few years. Don't attack the nurse who possibly thought she was doing the right thing at that time...instead enjoy the time you have been given to spend with your friend.

DigForVictory

+1 for make time for your friend.
She may be putting on a very robust face & quietly having bad moments, she may be near total denial, she may actually reckon that right now she feels passable & that several years will do nicely thanks.
So if she wants to plan a funeral in draft, check her Will, research hospitals & so forth, now is as good a time as any (and if you haven't got a life insurance policy or a Will sorted, could you 'fess up & ask if she'd help you?) Gives her a way of getting the job done in company and not as the focus. Or being on the sidelines so she can see what's involved & act when she's ready.
It may be a bit in your face to point her to compassion in dying which could give her a lot of information to process but also a significantly increased feeling of being in control rather than being trolleyed along unable to steer.

Altogether more positive than sitting worrying is to plan as far as possible.

seven-day-weekend

My friend was given three months (which he knew about) and then a few weeks later given three weeks. His family decided not to tell him this. He died three weeks to the day after this prognosis.

The medical professionals were honest; it was his family's decision not to tell him about the shorter timescale.

Even so, he was still able to plan his funeral (and took great comfort from doing so).

In the above scenario, maybe the friend was just pointing out to the lady that she may not have two years, and to think about the future now, and make plans while she could.

I think the best thing for the lady to do is ask the Doctors who are treating her.