Hello Granddaughter,

How lucky your grandpa is to have such a caring family. From my experience, the announcement of surgery is quite traumatic. I fought against it intellectually and was worried about quality of life afterwards. However the odds are good for your grandpa to go on living a decent life if he agrees.

I looked at all the alternatives, and asked for a second opinion. When everyone is telling you the same thing, it becomes impossible to ignore. Perhaps this could help in your case too.

Unfortunstely, with cancer, doing nothing is not an option. Being diagnosed at Stage 4 means that time is of the essence. You could try telling him how important he is to you, Tell him you will be there for him, but that you need him in your life, that he has to do this.

Yes, surgery will hurt, and there will be discomfort from the radiotherapy. But life is so precious. Once he has got his head round the idea, I hope he will allow the doctors to help him, and in so doing prolong his life.

Having said all that, it is his life, his body. He does have  the right to refuse surgery. Although it was tough, I’m glad I went ahead with mine.

Thank you so much for this. I hope he finds the strength to go through with it.