When more isn’t better

For Randi Oster, the hardest part of her father’s cancer wasn’t getting him through treatment; it was getting his doctors to listen to what he wanted.

As Oster writes in a Washington Post op-ed, even though her father kept saying he did not want chemo and radiation to treat his terminal brain cancer, their family felt enormous pressure to do “everything they could” to prolong his life. It wasn’t until their family realized that he would live only six months longer with surgery, and have to endure chemo, radiation, and other side effects, that they realized that surgery was the wrong choice.  

“He preferred eight weeks of being with his family over eight months of disability and unpleasant treatments,” writes Oster. 

Read the full op-ed at The Washington Post!