Extending life, really?

Human life is said to be a journey. It started when we were born and it ends when we die.
What type of life is great may hardly have been similar for all. It is easy to say anything for those who need not face the hard choice.

When one has cancer and it is certain that one would prefer to live at any cost. That is the major reason for the research of high priced medicine Just see "Costly Cancer Drug Offers Hope, but Also a Dilemma" and it is certain that most of us might feel the pain of facing such decision. For a billionaire, or with full insurance coverage, it is a natural choice even if the costly medicine would give one some extra weeks.

I always say that if one cannot live happily, longevity may lead to more suffering instead. Until now, I am not convinced by their saying that one might have an extra months or one might die at a certain period. That is only an assumption.

More than six years before my mother's death, she was diagnosed with stomach cancer at age about 90. I discussed with her and decided not to have any operation. The doctor told me that without operation, she would live for a few months. No operation, no expensive medicine, she lived for six years instead.

Before her death, one of her leg was broken. She had no pain. The doctors and I were astonished. In fact, I have a former student who is the senior orthopaedist of that hospital. I told him about my mother's case and he went to check my mother's leg. He called me that night and told me that my mother had no pain at all. Since we could not forecast how long she would live, therefore we agreed that she needed an operation to fix the leg. Yet the anaesthetist did not allow the operation because of she was too weak. She died within a week. That indicated her brain and organs were exhausted. In other words, she died naturally and not due to any illness.

It can be assumed that this was because we are not rich and did not have millions to spend. That is true. If one is rich, one will have a different decision for the stomach cancer. To have an operation or any other cancer treatment for a ninety years old woman will certainly be painful. Fortunately, she did not need to suffer.

Under the title, "Nothing better than be a diabetes patient myself", I have talked about my treatment and recovery. Recently, I am trying to recall what happened some years before to find what type of symptoms we have to watch. I believe that diabetes and cancer etc. should not be happened in a day. I shall post the findings later.

For the problem of paying huge amount without recovery and with the assumption that one had live a few months more, I know that such medicine will not be effective, not even the extended period of life that based on false assumption. Will you?