She had walked out of her cancer consultation while the cancer was still localized, imminently treatable and not immediately life-threatening. Told her doctor she was going to treat it with "diet," juices and homeopathy.
She went back to managing her tourist bar and cafe. Made post after post on Facebook about how she felt better than she ever had in her whole life, following whatever kind of diet and taking her grass and flower pills and drinking expensive juice and god-knows-what concoctions. I remember she even did an interview with some publication of some sort preening on about how she wasn't necessarily against conventional medical treatment but that she "trusted her body," thought that cancer treatment was "too commercialized" and doctors obviously didn't know everything or there wouldn't be any such thing as dying from cancer.
Fast forward a little less than a year later and I'm handing her a small cup of lukewarm water with a straw, explaining to her how her NG tube will be inserted through one of her nostrils down to her stomach. I tell her I will be a gentle as possible, and that once we get the tube in she'll have a great measure of relief and won't be laying in a bed of vomitus anymore. I explain how the water will help passage of the tube, and she must follow my direction to avoid injury. Then she starts to cry. Which swells her nasal passages, of course.
She was being followed by palliative care at that point because she would not accept hospice. Having wanted nothing to do with the medical "establishment" while her cancer could have been stopped, she alternately threatened, pleaded, and tried strategies ranging from pity to rage to comically transparent manipulation to try and get her doctors to do something! to save her.
Of course, the cancer was literally everywhere by then. She would not be saved. If we couldn't save her why the hell couldn't she have her Leatrile, she demanded. I was in the room when the doc told her "Look, there are still some quack clinics in other countries that will give that to you. They're very happy to take whatever is left of your money but once they are done with you, they're done. If you think you can survive the journey there and that's what you want to do, I won't stand in your way, but I think you're likely to die in excruciating pain under sub-standard public care thousands of miles from your friends and family. The decision is yours."
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