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Hiding a fatal disease, is it wrong?
Fireflash
Montreal, QCRegistered User regular
Montreal, QCRegistered User regular
This was inspired by a recent H&A thread. It's also something I thought about recently, for no particular reason. I didn't put this in H&A because this is not a real situation, I am not about to die from some disease or illness.
Let's say the doctor tells me I have something that will most likely kill me within the next few years. A cancer, or anything fatal that may not necessarily be physically visible to people around me. I live a few hours away from my family and see them maybe 3 or 4 times a year. This means it would be somewhat easy to hide something big from them.
So now what if I decide not to tell anyone around me? I wish to live my life normally as if nothing was wrong, and try to hide this from friends and family for as long as possible (until I become visibly ill and stuck in an hospital bed). I don't want people to pity me, to feel sad about my somewhat imminent passing.
Would that be selfish of me? Do I owe my mother to tell her that her own son is dying? Or should I stick to my personal wishes? I know most people tell their family when there is something very bad going on with them, but I'm wondering if other people considered the secrecy alternative for such scenarios.
Let's say the doctor tells me I have something that will most likely kill me within the next few years. A cancer, or anything fatal that may not necessarily be physically visible to people around me. I live a few hours away from my family and see them maybe 3 or 4 times a year. This means it would be somewhat easy to hide something big from them.
So now what if I decide not to tell anyone around me? I wish to live my life normally as if nothing was wrong, and try to hide this from friends and family for as long as possible (until I become visibly ill and stuck in an hospital bed). I don't want people to pity me, to feel sad about my somewhat imminent passing.
Would that be selfish of me? Do I owe my mother to tell her that her own son is dying? Or should I stick to my personal wishes? I know most people tell their family when there is something very bad going on with them, but I'm wondering if other people considered the secrecy alternative for such scenarios.
PSN: PatParadize
Battle.net: Fireflash#1425
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Battle.net: Fireflash#1425
Steam Friend code: 45386507
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God, you want to live those last months/years happily and normally, you don't want to be treated like you're made of glass.
edit: Also, if I ever get something that's going to kill me, I'll be telling fucking everyone, and getting as much pity and free shit as I can. I'll go out like a goddamn king.
Yeah, it would be a nice thing to tell those around how long they can enjoy your presence.
This is true, but I think so many people (certainly including myself) take it as a given that their loved ones (especially husbands/wives, siblings, and children) will be around for a long time, and as such don't make a huge effort to spend lots of quality time together...because it just doesn't seem that urgent. We put things off, thinking "Yeah, well, maybe I'll call my brother next week", without really thinking that it's entirely possible that you'll never see them again.
That said, there are devils in them thar details. It depends a lot on what their family is like. Some families just can't handle anything out of the ordinary in a mature fashion. I'd argue that this is a result of a lifetime (or multiple lifetimes) of sweeping major events under the rug, and that it would be better to break that habit, but having cancer and less than six months to live isn't necessarily the best time to try to break your family out of old unhealthy habits.
I also think the person in the H/A thread would be better off if she just told everybody what was happening, but that's outside the scope of that thread so I didn't post in it.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
My mother always knew I'd get married and not say a word, and I didn't. Not until I had to bring my wife around. I've just always been that way regardless of the fact that people never understand it. It's not with malice.
You must be joking. Your edit completely contradicts what you wrote in the first paragraph. You think it's fucking selfish that someone wants to keep something to themselves so you plan to tell eveyone so you can to milk everything out of it.
I love italics
I'm just saying if I were dying, I think I'd feel better about it if people were lavishing me with attention and helping me out and stuff. That doesn't change my position that I think it's fucked up not to tell people, I'm just saying that further beyond that, I wouldn't mind the side-effects that inevitably come with "Hey everyone, I'm dying".
...anyway, point is, just like everyone else, I'm going to die someday, but unlike many others, I've got some idea of what the probable cause will be.
Of course my family and close friends know. But there's a bit of a question around less-close friends, new friends, acquaintances, potential love interests, &c &c. How soon do I tell people? If it's the first thing I say after "G'day", it feels like I'm trying to milk it, but if I never mention it at all then it seems somehow dishonest or... the longer I go without telling someone the more difficult it becomes to mention it later. I tend to go for a haphazard approach... if I get into an area of conversation with someone where it seems relevant, I'll probably blurt it out, maybe 50% of the time. It's always a little difficult but nobody's ever reacted badly.
Probably the toughest category to deal with is potential-love-interest. Right now I'm so time-poor that the idea of a girlfriend seems like a faraway, impossible dream, but no dissertation takes forever. And... well, in a way I think the dichotomy above gets even worse in this case. Say it too soon and you probably come across as angling for pity sex. Say it too late and your wife might think that you could have mentioned your heritable degenerative illness before the baby was conceived. Uh, so to speak. I'm sure there's a happy medium in there somewhere, but actually working it out in reality may be a little complicated.
Anyway, not asking for H/A, or pity for that matter, but I thought I'd share my perspective. :P The amount of hiding I do isn't wrong, but really, if someone else was to do more hiding, or less, I wouldn't be one to judge them.
If your illness is expected to last a year or longer, you have an obligation merely to inform your loved ones that you are ill, and that it is serious. You don't need to share your prognosis with them until you are further along in your illness, it would be cruel to leave them without hope when you have a couple years left in you - that is too early for them to begin the grieving process, protracted illnesses with no chance for recovery can be more stressful for friends and family than even sudden unexpected death.
This isn't to say that dealing with busybody relatives isn't hard, and that these added difficulties are coming at a bad time. It is, and they are. This is a situation that requires honesty, firmness, and courage. The dying person will have to set boundaries if certain loved ones become a source of stress instead of a source of comfort, enlist the aid of caregivers and non-annoying loved ones in setting these boundaries for you. Very few people can say that they are the only reasonable person in a family full of histronic, micro-managing people, but if you were to find yourself in that situation, I can see why you would want to hide an illness.
This is your final test of character. It's not the time to fail, or worse, not even try to get it right.
With regards to fatal diseases, I don't think it's immoral to not tell your family about it (this is assuming you're in my situation; living on your own with no one dependent on you). Though this is mostly based on my experience, given I had a relative in the same position. He had cancer and didn't tell anyone, and his death caught everyone off guard. But, given my family's history, I think he made the right choice in not telling anyone. If he had, my family would have probably fixated on his mortality, rather than spending as much time as they could with him as they could and appriciating every moment of it.
You're facing one of the hardest thing that any human being ever faces when you're dying. I'd imagine that you're a mess inside in many ways, and just want to hold on to normality for a few days more - to live as you have always lived - not to leave dramatically, with sadness and bitterness, but to slip away one day, as if you'd just left the room. Have your last days on earth be a testament to the person you were. I don't think that's a morally reprehensible desire. Who knows, it may even be easier on those whom you leave behind. I think it depends a lot on the situation.
Or have them use it against me.
But yeah, it differs per situation. Some people I see a lot and I don't expect that to change, it would probably be better if we can be around each other without feeling awkward.
I'm just saying - maybe when you're dealing with imminent oblivion your perspectives are, understandably, a bit skewed. I don't think I could fault someone for being selfish, or afraid, or just tired on their last few days on earth.
Don't worry about it, you're the sort of friend who disappears when things get hard anyway. My dad had lots of those.
This isn't "the last few days" though. This is several months to a year or two. I'm sorry, but that's enough warning that you have an obligation to give people a chance to see you and make their peace with you while you're still in good health. If you're slapped with a 3-4 week prognosis, such as with metastatic lung cancer or something, then yeah, you need that last brief time to prepare yourself for death, not hold the hand of every single person who is going to miss you and make them all OK with everything. But with that much time on your hands, you have enough time to prepare yourself and help prepare everyone else. Shirking that second bit so you can take an extra trip (there will be time for trips, my dad took 3 and he only had 6 months) or watch the entire Naruto series 6 times instead of 2, then you're a fucking douche.
Like everyone's suggested, it's very dependant on the exact situation. Time before you die, your family's general ways of reacting to bad news, your life up until that point. I couldn't suggest someone that had a crummy life with nobody generally caring about them, to just not tell anyone, unless they didn't mind the no fuss attitude they've received.
Personally, I'd opt for the not letting people know, unless something serious like some sort of relationship were to come about. Who knows when that sort of thing may happen, and 1 year before you're to be in the grave, something happens, and this person you're with means the world to you. I'd probably have to tell her, if that were to happen. I wouldn't want to ruin a year of her life, unless she wanted to spend it with me.
The only other thing I had to say was, I am kinda mad at the idea of someone saying, they'd like to know if their grandmother only had a few more months to live, so they could spend more time with her. Hey, jackass, spend some time with your grandmother. She's not gonna be there forever, try and visit her every week. She could go tomorrow, and you'd feel guilty for not heeding your own words. You just have to wonder, would she be thinking, I wish I saw my grandson more...
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I very much doubt someone could hide a fatal disease for 2 years, but if they could, I think it's entirely within their rights to do so. It may not be the absolute best situation - but it's their health, and ultimately, their prerogative.
I'm also not sure that telling people produces a significantly different result in the long run. They may come to terms with your imminent death, but that doesn't obviate the grieving period after you croak it - and it certainly doesn't make the intervening period any easier.
I don't know. I think there's something to be said for not saying "Jimmy, I'm dying", and instead saying "Jimmy, grab the frisbee! Let's go play in the park!"
And "not telling people" isn't the same as "living in seclusion" - you can still say your goodbyes, but they'll just be rather one-sided.
I really do think it depends on the situation. Sometimes the former is more selfish, sometimes the latter.
I'm not even going to reply to you. You don't know me, my grandmother or my family. Stop calling me a jackass.