Hi everyone,

Im new here. I dunno where else I could share this awkward/heart-breaking/frustrating feeling so I have come to here. It’s gonna be a bit long...

My brother, who hasn’t even finished studying, was diagnosed with medulloblastoma (subtype 3, very rare for adults) last year and then underwent radiotherapy. It was good for a while. He picked up school work and body started healing. A recent MRI follow-up revealed that he has bone mets to spine, femur, rib cage etc. The doctor has recommended chemo but the first round got him into ICU eventually. We didn’t continue with it worrying about another ICU episode. 

Thing is, many family members blamed me for “directing” my brother to believe that chemo won’t help. I gathered these info from many medical journals and also directly from his doctor that the chemo is 20-30% effective as a palliative treatment. The lifespan is not significantly prolonged, according to data. Furthermore, that one time at ICU almost killed him. It also won’t be possible for him to travel around if he does the chemo. 

His situation has very recently gone a bit worse, with a lot of pain here and there and starts taking pain killers (only paracetamol for the time being). I start to wonder if not having chemo done is wrong. It’s tearing me up seeing him suffering. Sometimes I selfishly think, maybe it’s even better if it’s a quick death. I feel horrible having such thoughts...

i have been googling why would young people get cancer, and why would HE get this kind of rare cancer (medulloblastoma subtype 3 with bone mets is super rare on adults) since he’s a very loving and kind person. I can’t accept that it’s just “a side effect of evolution” as John Green wrote in his book. It’s just too unfair :(

thanks for reading.