Both my uncle (a very close uncle) and my mother are living survivors of cancer. My uncle had a tumor in his cerebellum, very near to his brain stem. My mother had melanoma skin cancer on her left shoulder.
I can tell you that the way you deal with cancer (or any high-mortality illness) is an incredibly personal decision. My mother is fortunate that she caught the cancer early. A sub-2mm melanoma left here with a golfball sized scoup of flesh missing from her shoulder.
My uncle has it far worse. The damage to his cerebellum and hippocampus means that A) he can no longer balance using his inner ear mechanism, and B) he has a difficult time developing new long term memories (yes, a lot like Memento).
I love my uncle so much it almost brings me to tears just talking about it, but knowing what I know now, I'd have understood perfectly if he decided to forego the radiation treatments that have literally caused his teeth to rot out of his head. I'd have understood perfectly if he decided to forego the debilitating chemo treatments that felt like (in the doctor's words) "a bad case of heroin withdraw". I'd have understood perfectly if he decided to forego the resulting divorce from his wife.
To say "cancer is a bitch" is a gross understatement. Even when you survive, what lies on the other side is a great amount of uncertainty. My uncle continues to be grateful for every day of his life, but I'd understand perfectly if he weren't.
Our lives are the one thing that remain our own until the end. We all decide how we'll live and die individually, and for our own reasons.
There should be a name for this flood of terrible linkbait articles that are trying to tenuously link the author's pet opinion to the Jobsian halo.
Top 3 so far:
"Jobs the Conservative" (He owned a business, so forget about all that Buddhist stuff and giving money to gay rights, he was a right wing conservative dammit)
"Jobs the Philanthropist" (He may never have actually given much money to charity, but by creating a huge business that provided jobs, some of those people must have given money to charity, so he was possibly the greatest philanthropist ever)
"Jobs the Suicide Case" (He possibly didn't immediately take the most drastic medical advice available, and I hear he was into all that alternative medicine stuff, so that must have meant he really killed himself probably)
It seems that both the title article and yours say exactly the same thing: "Steve Jobs' might be alive today if he had the surgery immediately when it was first recommended to him." The title article is very inflammatory. Your link is much more balanced: cancer is a bitch, and it's impossible to know anything about it with certainty.
But the difference between the two articles is purely style, not substance, in my opinion.
It might have been if he had a normal pancreatic cancer, but, as has been pointed out in numerous informed sources, islet cell carcinoma is very slow-acting. His initial prognosis was presumably fairly good.
I can tell you that the way you deal with cancer (or any high-mortality illness) is an incredibly personal decision. My mother is fortunate that she caught the cancer early. A sub-2mm melanoma left here with a golfball sized scoup of flesh missing from her shoulder.
My uncle has it far worse. The damage to his cerebellum and hippocampus means that A) he can no longer balance using his inner ear mechanism, and B) he has a difficult time developing new long term memories (yes, a lot like Memento).
I love my uncle so much it almost brings me to tears just talking about it, but knowing what I know now, I'd have understood perfectly if he decided to forego the radiation treatments that have literally caused his teeth to rot out of his head. I'd have understood perfectly if he decided to forego the debilitating chemo treatments that felt like (in the doctor's words) "a bad case of heroin withdraw". I'd have understood perfectly if he decided to forego the resulting divorce from his wife.
To say "cancer is a bitch" is a gross understatement. Even when you survive, what lies on the other side is a great amount of uncertainty. My uncle continues to be grateful for every day of his life, but I'd understand perfectly if he weren't.
Our lives are the one thing that remain our own until the end. We all decide how we'll live and die individually, and for our own reasons.