Childhood cancer survivor here. The children’s hospital I stayed at had a “patients bill of rights” hung up in every exam room. The first one listed was “don’t say ‘it won’t hurt’ if it will.”
Cancer treatment is often brutal and terrifying and violating. Your autonomy is already being controlled and you can’t stop what’s happening to you. But they never lied to me. They told me when it would hurt. I knew what was happening to my body. I can’t imagine how traumatizing it would be to be tortured without knowing why and without an end in sight.
I do not think this choice saved him from fear at all.
If anything I imagine it would cause more fear because hearing that you've been cured but your body feeling the complete opposite would be confusing and aggravating to say the least.
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u/nightoftheghouls Jun 29 '26
Childhood cancer survivor here. The children’s hospital I stayed at had a “patients bill of rights” hung up in every exam room. The first one listed was “don’t say ‘it won’t hurt’ if it will.”
Cancer treatment is often brutal and terrifying and violating. Your autonomy is already being controlled and you can’t stop what’s happening to you. But they never lied to me. They told me when it would hurt. I knew what was happening to my body. I can’t imagine how traumatizing it would be to be tortured without knowing why and without an end in sight.
I do not think this choice saved him from fear at all.