When somebody dies of cancer, what exactly is the actual reason the body stops working?
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My mom’s ovarian cancer spread even after surgery and blocked her digestive system. She was on IV nutrition but it wasn’t enough to keep her alive and strong enough to get chemo.
I don’t know the exact thing that killed her. Probably a stroke. The cancer was making a lot of blood clots and some probably got past the filters. 🙁
I wish everyone in these comments, who knows/ lost someone or is going through this themselves. You have my sympathies, condolences and best wishes. I lost my mum to it just 63, no warning it was coming, awful disease as fate would have it I, now have aggressive MS at just 36. Out of the frying pan into the freezer.
From what I’ve seen, with palliative care, at some point they give them high radiation doses to give them a planned exit. Lay person opinion.
My dog died of a splenic ( tumour in/ on the spleen )
Grew within a year to block the gastrointestinal tract , could eat in last days but vomited it all up , could drink but again vomited it all up , pushed against the lungs so last hours were spent laying and not moving on his bed and panting rapidly, very frightened as he did not know what was happening
Obviously no bowel movements, was probably dehydrating and becoming confused.
Vet arrived and put him to sleep , last few minutes were relaxing for him and he looked peaceful
RN here: people with cancer are often very sick. They look like they are starving to death , muscles wasted away. There are a couple of causes of death that are common to many cancers. One is blood clots. That can be a heart attack , stroke or pulmonary embolism. Another is liver failure. Infection is also common for example with cancer of the digestive system. And it the cancer get into the brain it kills you by putting pressure on important structures or killings cells.
I had a baby cousin that was diagnosed with cancer at birth. Treatment for two years and really started to improve! One night, his vitals dropped and he went into septic shock. He was dead within minutes. Autopsy later confirmed that he had a rip in his bowels that was not detected soon enough. The real kicker, he was cancer free at this point. Chemo and radiation was too much for his little body.
Common things seen inpatient at a hospital
– you get septic because tumor invades non sterile space (intestine) and you get a blood stream infection
– Brain invasion=> stroke, mass effect among other things
– Electrolyte derangement (High or low potassium etc) cause heart to go int arrhythmia
– Youre weak from chemo, immune system down, you get septic from pneumonia or something else that would often be trivial like UTI
– Clots in the vascular system causing stroke or pulmonary embolism, or just blockage of blood flow in general. The later will cause organs to individually shut down slowly
– Blood loss/anemia from bleeding into intestine or abdomen. Or bone marrow shuts down from chemo plus you not eating and being weak
or a combo of the above
I am a medical scribe for an oncologist.
The most common type of cancer is follicular lymphoma. Its also the most curable and has a 95% cure rate.
It’s basically cancer of the follicles of lymph nodes. The worst part is it usually spread quickly if not treated quickly. Most patients are asymptomatic and don’t know they have it hntil their blood work comes back abnormal.
Cancer creates “mutated” or abnormal cells to grow. Usually these cells create a huge mass that obstructs the organ or organs surrounding it.
Lymph nodes are out body’s defense mechanism and a part of out immune system. Follicular lymphoma if left untreated, would act much like an autoimmune disorder, slowly inhibiting the immune system, meaning the person with it would gradually become sicker and sicker and something like the common cold could potentially be fatal for them.
Other cancers like lung, liver, bladder, brain, and other secluded organ cancers destroy the organ it develops in. Metastatic (meaning it spreads through the blood stream) is the worst because the cancer develops then spreads through to several other organs and parts of the body.
I see and take notes on patients with anything from the least severe such as melanoma of the skin, to the worst such as brain cancer or leukemia.
Cancer is basically a cell mutation that eats and destroys healthy cells. Depending on where the cancer is in the body, death can be caused by organ failure. Leukemia causes the bone marrow to stop producing red blood cells causing issues like neutropenia (lack of white blood cells) or thrombocytopenia (lack of red blood cells) and basically that person would pass away from severe anemia.
It is a very complex, scary, disease. And although some of it has a 95% cure rate, there is no guarantee that the chemotherapy or immunotherapy will work.
We see patients that live with cancer for YEARS on chemo, and we see others who are terminal.
It all depends on how fast the cancer progresses it what stage its in, how well your body reacts to the chemotherapy or immunotherapy, and how willing you are to fight it.
I see some sad cases everyday. But some patients give me hope that as technology advances, there will be an increase in certain cancer’s being able to go into remission quicker and have a higher cure rate percentage.
But no cancer is good, and the quicker it can be treated, the better your chances are!
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