My mom is 78-year young and she was diagnosed last year with a bout of skin cancer through a tiny spot on her nose that was itchy and scratchy. The diagnosis was made early, and the prognosis was, and still is good.
On the other hand, there is her sister Erin, who was caught with a cough in December 2024, and fully diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer which had spread to the bones.
Skin cancer in people in their 70s and 80s is very common, since old people have lived for a long time with some of their body parts — such as hands and faces — exposed to the Sun. And my aunt Erin had smoked tobacco cigarettes for about twenty years before quitting in her early 40s.
But in the game of cancer, damage that was once done cannot be erased.
One single bad burn in childhood can lead to skin cancer in your 80s. And twenty years of smoking can lead to lung cancer in your 80s as well — even after having quit for so long. Sometimes, the damage has been done, and denial is one of the worst attitudes when cancer is around.
My mom accepted the chemo pills with gratitude, and she is perfectly clear at the moment. Her sister accepted ANY therapy with grace, but she died within weeks of the diagnosis, so she never had an honest chance.
If chemo would decrease the quality of life in a very old person in such a way that the afterlife isn’t life after all, then any honest doctor would have to inform the patient that more peaceful ways exist to become part of the horizons.