A. It was interesting because her oncologist, who was very prominent, never said a word to me. Although I was a medical professional, I wasn't at the time a solid tumor oncologist. I was relatively young -- I had been a faculty member for eight years -- and I had little kids. But he never said, "You need to set up this and this." Or, "How are you managing at home? Here's an agency you can call." Or, "These are the kinds of narcotics that will ease her pain." So how do you know what kinds of medications are going to help the person when you don't know what's going to happen?
My mother had bone-only metastatic disease, as far as we knew, and no one said, "This is how people die when they have this kind of cancer." I didn't have the right drugs to help her die, and I didn't get referred to hospice. No one told me any of that, and I tell everybody that now.
