What happens between diagnosis and death, to someone who is not receiving cancer care?
I mean, if the person doesn’t go to the hospital and go through chemo, etc etc, what will happen to their body before their death?
you can die from bleeding if the tumor hits a major blood vessel;
die from asphyxiation if you have a lung tumor
brain mets eventually kill by either compression or hitting the breathing center in the brain stem
liver mets kill by liver failure
the sheer mass of tumor which is higly active metabolically can lead to wasting, you can lose the will to eat and either of these make you exremely susceptible to infections
leukemias also make you susceptible to infections and finally you might get multiple organ failure
at any rate there is often severe pain from the tumor or mets (bone mets are particularly painful)
hospice care usually involves heavy pain medication (e.g. morphine pump) but if you are really taken care of in this way, you can pass away peacefully.
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