I'm sorry about your friend Jill.

My aunt was diagnosed with aggressive lung cancer (adenocarcinoma)two years ago. They gave her 6 months because it covers both lungs.

She worked her whole life, never even taking vacation days she earned. She started chemo and worked for awhile, but then was too sick.

Finally after losing all her hair, she decided being sick was worse than death. So she stopped the chemo. Two years later she looks great and has energy to spare. We just went to Niagara Falls.

We are planning a cruise next August, after my husband returns from the desert and can watch the kids, if she is still feeling well. I wish we could go now, but, alas and alak, war calls.

I am glad they told her and that they were wrong. If she knew life would go on for two more years after diagnosis, she woulda worked them all. She's just that way.

Now she is home for the first time in her adult life. I am close for the first time in twenty years and a SAHM so we get to spend lots of time together. (My husband is so great about it. He is constantly encouraging us to "get away.")

All that to say. Yeah, I'd want to know. If they don't give me a number, how will I know when I beat it?  

I know what you are enduring and I am sorry.

And yes, I would want to know.

I guess I really am different than most.  I've always tried to live each day as if it might be my last.  I've always prepared for the worst but hoped for the best.  I've always said I love you.  If I weren't here tomorrow (God forbid!) I wouldn't have a single regret.  The only things I have left to do, couldn't be done ahead of time anyway.  Like be there through life for my kids.

As for needing a date in order to know when I've beat it, I guess I would assume I would win the fight until told otherwise.  I think being told I only had a certain amount of time would only make me fixate on that and impede my ability to fight the fight and enjoy each day as it came rather than having some count down in my head.

I hope i am not faced with that situation, knowing, yet not being able to live the rest of the time in a manner of my choosing.

That's exactly why I absolutely despised that Tim McGraw song "Live Like You Were Dying".  It talked about mountain climbing and doing all of these fantastic, physical things while my friend was truly living like she was dying, i.e., in a hospice, vomitting constantly, seeing the pain and worry in the faces of her loved ones.  That's no way to "live".

I'm sorry to hear this. I would like to know, because I would want to make sure that I am spending every last second that I could with my girl.

I guess i would prefer the doctor tell me something like "There's a high mortality rate among people with your condition" to communicate the severity of the situation rather than give some arbitrary "You have 6 months to live". But then again, I never trusted the docs when it came to due dates for my babies either (and I was sooo right!).