Innovation Pharmaceuticals Inc (IPIX)

[Areader]

Uh, no. We have no idea why she decided what she did, but who are we to say her decision wasn't the best one for her?

One of my patients, a smart, health and fitness nut her entire life who died of her cancer (even though she did the most invasive, disfiguring treatments/surgeries possible, because her priority was to live for her young child) once said to me, "I get these idiotic thoughts like, 'If only I'd eaten more broccoli.'"

That became kind of a short hand, inside joke for us, whenever she'd blame herself for something going wrong in her treatment, like it not working. I'd say to her, "You should have eaten more broccoli." And we would laugh and she would realize she was being ridiculous in her expectations of herself.

I still think of her and she died over a decade ago. She decided to go for a horrible surgery early on that had the best chance of prolonging her life, but that many smart people told her was not necessary - yet. If it had saved her life, those same smart people might not look very smart. It didn't and she went through what turned out to be unnecessary, painful procedures. Do those people who told her no look smarter? I don't think so. Does she look dumb because she made the wrong decision? No to that, as well. In the end, she was very happy she'd made that wrong decision, so at least when she died, she'd know she'd done everything she could.

For the woman in this study, she was likely thinking "what if I continue on and my marker increases? Why should I take that chance?" And if she had and it had, well, I don't think any of us expect K to show 100% cure rate/efficacy, do we? Especially for cancer that has 17% survival. So, if she had continued and died anyway, that would mean she couldn't have tried something else that might have had a chance of saving her. Would you call her not so smart then?

She was in a safety study of an unproven drug. That alone takes courage and smarts.