[scotty79]

That's a bit harsh on the doctors. If you or your loved one have a solid mass in the brain an evening of googling can tell you that it's most likely the end of the road rather sooner than later. There's very little anyone can do to help you feel better or retain illusion of agency over your life

When you are finding this out it's usually because you already have significant symptoms that progress because growing mass puts a pressure on the brain. So Option 3 is increasingly suffer what you are already suffering till death, prompt one in case of fast growing tumor, more distant in case of the slow one. If you want to do anything else the best course of action is to remove what shouldn't be there. You could in theory remove just a small bit just to find out what it is, but it won't help with the symptoms you already have and risks of biopsy are very similar to risks of surgery which will also potentially give you more information. Also the information that biopsy could provide would be most relevant in the worst case so that the surgery is done with large margins which might result with few months longer survival but way worse quality of life.

So a surgery is basically a no brainer in your already terrible situation. If you are super lucky it might turn out that you had in your brain something relatively benign which, after recovery can give you at least years of normal life.

Context: My partner has a large grade 3 glioma and first surgery, radiation and chemotherapy gave her 5 years of completely normal life and the second one after recurrence another year.

Our approach to all of this was that no one really knows how long they specifically are going to live. And that doesn't change with diagnosis. Statistics is just that. Statistics.

Calling such life bridge to nowhere is just a bleak perspective. Same could be said about every life with similar accuracy.

[lucianbr]

Your conclusion does not seem to follow from the premises.

> There's very little anyone can do

Hence the validity of the "do nothing" option.

> If you want to do anything else

But you may want to do nothing. There are valid reasons for it.

> So a surgery is basically a no brainer

Non sequitur.

Your context suggests that you think doing something is a good idea because you know of a case where it worked out. This is availability bias.

> Statistics is just that. Statistics.

What is this even supposed to mean? Statistics is a useful tool. You're denying it with no argument. "I don't like statistics."

[scotty79]

> Hence the validity of the "do nothing" option.

It's hard. If you knew you are doomed that would be a valid option. But you can't know that even though it's likely. And on a slim chance you are not doomed, choosing to do nothing is pretty much impossible unless you already wanted to die and suffer unitl then. As I said, usually you don't randomly find out about tumor in your brain. Usually you learn about it because of some progressing symptoms. So you decide on a treatment based on those symptoms. Doing nothing when you suffer and something can be done to help with that is very hard despite risks involved and even ultimate pointlessness. You don't make decisions in those situations based on some theoretical existential framework. You make them on practical grounds. And "do nothing" is almost never a result. "Do nothing" is just an option you might regret not takin with hindsight or an option you might consider ahead of time entirely theoretically. In practice this option is almost never chosen and it's not because of doctors comunicate badly and could do better. It's because of practicality and need for maintaining illusion of agency over your life. It's very hard to belive your life will really end even though you know it's true. Doing something really is no brainer, bacause alternative is not really do nothing. It's lie down, suffer and most likely die suffering progressively more and you would have to consciously choose that. Rarely anone does.

> What is this even supposed to mean? Statistics is a useful tool. You're denying it with no argument. "I don't like statistics."

I love statistics. But statistics by its very nature can't predict what will be an outcome of a single coin toss you are about to do. There's nothing that can't predict that singular result. The only thing you really know is that neither head, nor tails is impossible. You life for you isn't a statistic. It's singular.

[lucianbr]

> You don't make decisions in those situations based on some theoretical existential framework. You make them on practical grounds.

Do you actually have this much insight into how all human beings make decisions? Maybe we should nominate you for a Nobel in pshychology.

More seriously, your confident assertion about how everyone makes decisions is baseless. The whole point is to allow people to make their own decisions, and you are denying it based on nothing but the implication that you know how everyone thinks and what's best for everyone.

> You life for you isn't a statistic. It's singular.

And yet you seem oddly confident about how I would decide or what would be best for me to decide.

[scotty79]

People are unique. Like snowflakes. In one snowstorm. Oddly you were initially all for statistics. Now you think you (and other people) don't fall into it with respect to decision making.

Your "nobel prize" comment indicates that you must be an absolutist (moral, or some other kind) because you've read my comments as it was the perfect knowledge of the matter and everything related, not just my perception of and opinion on it. That's all it is, do with it what you will.

[pfdietz]

> So a surgery is basically a no brainer

I see what you did there.