Sallie,

You didn't really say when your husband passed away but I am sure it will always be painful. Thank you for sharing that and I am sorry you have had to endure that and all that is going on with your father. You are certainly a strong person. Your dad is pretty fortunate to have you by his side.

You are perhaps asking the single most important question we as humans can ever ask. There is no magic formula, unfortunately. The debate has raged on for centuries when a person has the right to fight or end life. There is no question your father is facing things that people worse off than him have faced and conquered. Yet, there are others much healthier that have chosen to not fight the battle. The treatment will be gruesome and all of us going through it have wondered at least once if the treatment was going to take us out. We are here to testify that it did not.

My recommendation is to get with a professional with your dad and talk through all the issues surrounding the treatment and candidly let your dad know what he is up against. There are people that are very good at this and do it for a living, full-time. I know ultimately that your dad has to make that decision and someone better equipped than me could guide him through a sound process of reaching the best decision for him.

My mother was diagnosed terminal with ovarian cancer and because of the brain mets they told her she probably only had 4 weeks or so left. She swore she would never have radiation. Two weeks later they told her if she didn't have radiation within days she would not make it. She looked up at me and then the doctor and asked us what we were waiting for. Ten treatments later she never got out of bed for more than a few minutes a day. She then decided to keep going with chemo for 7 more months. When she finally decided the 3 weeks of intense vomitting and feeling terrible between the chemo treatments was all she could handle, she stopped and lived almost exactly 4 weeks. I often asked her if she was content with the quality of her life. She spent all day watching the Food Network, primarily Emeril and the Iron Chef. Cooking was her life and she told me what else could you ask for.

The important thing to remember is once the decision is made to just sit back and let the disease take it's course, that decision often can not be reversed. Treating the intense pain or further progression of the disease may be all that is needed for a person to feel they are doing everything they can during the final stages of life.

Again, I am not a trained professional but I personally have already discussed this with my wife and we both know when I tell her enough is enough, exactly what that means.

I am really sorry I don't have an answer for you and even feel worse that any family has to go through this process. There is nothing in life that can ever prepare us to watch a loved one succumb to this dreaded disease or anything that ends life before nature intended it.

God Bless,

Ed