Teen girl and mother fight the state over right to refuse chemo cancer treatment

[YarnAddict]

128. Anyone here been treated with chemo for Hodgkins?

I was. I had Stage 3 mixed cell Hogkins Lymphoma, diagnosed in 1986. I was 30 years old, and seven months pregnant with my second son.

I was treated with chemotherapy and radiation. I didn't lose my hair, due to a torture device called a cold cap. After wetting down my hair and putting a tourniquet around my scalp, I had to wear an ice cold foam rubber cap during my IV treatment. The point was that blood flow to the scalp was restricted, and the toxic effects of the chemo would be reduced to that area. It was awful, and toward the end of my treatment, I would vomit at the sight of it. I was willing to forego the cold cap, knowing that hair grows back, but the nurses encouraged me to continue it, since it worked so well.

The whole ordeal was awful. But, I can tell you for a fact that the 29 years of life I have lived as a result of undergoing that ordeal have been well worth it.

I suffer no long-term effects of the chemo. Ironically, the radiation (which was the far easier portion of the treatment) has caused some heart damage, but I am still here, with no end in sight.

This young woman is willing to give up decades of life out of fear of temporary side effects and an unknown future. She isn't thinking clearly because of her age, her mother's influence, and the distress of a devastating and unexpected diagnosis.

I wish she would understand and cooperate with her docs, but since she won't, I think the courts are making the correct decision in this particular case, and I think that someday she will be grateful.