This is so well said. I think people think cancer diagnosis = dying, moving towards dying/very sick. Which can be the case. But the reality is in many cases, diagnosis = commence treatment options and continue to LIVE with cancer. So the way she looks is kinda irrelevant in terms of her health, but super relevant in terms of opportunities to grift/fund raise and so on. I too think she has a diagnosis and the chemo drug is keeping it at bay. I wish these clinics existed to give cancer patients a lovely holiday during or in between treatments- not a false hope.Agree with this, I've always taken the same position and completely agree about Emily. I think she has cancer - I think she is healthy otherwise and young so she can respond well to treatment and I think the Alectinib is doing what it does for many patients. It is keeping her alive. Everything else is a farce, potentially its helping her feel in control, but the '2nd diagnosis' is just evidence to me that it never left and the cancer is just doing what it always would have done.
I unfortunately have had a lot of experience of cancer and have also been a cancer patient. What I think confuses people who don't have that experience is how people look. It is very normal to look very healthy and have cancer. One of the reasons the disease is so deadly is that it isn't easy to spot, you have to rely on finding it by identifying some very vague symptoms if its not found via screening. Most people have an image of what a cancer patient looks like - and its either someone that has had chemo, particularly if they lose their hair or is at the end of their life. I think in this Instagram age, it can be confusing to people that people with cancer can look so healthy. I myself never looked better than when I had cancer - but hadn't yet had chemo. I had lost weight - which gives people the perception of health, I changed my diet so my skin looked very clear and hair looked good and I was getting a lot of rest - I stopped work, I was able to not have so much reponsibility during treatment - but these things don't show what is going on inside and have no correlation to the disease being there or not. Jessie Lee ward is an example of someone who looked amazing - much healthier than when she didn't have cancer if you compare photos, but if you watched her lives particularly towards the end (and I see this a little in Kate) she was slowing her speech, losing track of what she was saying, leaning on things to prop herself up - she was tired and I think in a not so obvious way the cancer had taken its toll.
I hope so much that you are now well OP