So, speaking as someone who knows a great deal about cancer: I think LW has a vision that this would automatically be very short-term. Even with stage 4 cancers, survival can extend for years. Even to use one of the most vicious cancers as our example, glioblastoma (a particularly nasty brain cancer that tends to move very fast, meaning 75% of patients will pass within a year post-diagnosis), 5% of glioblastoma patients will live past five years post-diagnosis, and 20% will last 1-5 years.
If we look at a different cancer that’s much more likely for Sasha, breast cancer, with stage 4 over 30% of patients will be alive at 5 years post-diagnosis, and about 13% are alive past a decade post-diagnosis.
Media depictions almost never show this, because it’s far more dramatic to have a character get cancer and then it’s a flurry of activity for weeks or months until the still-vibrant-and-beautiful character has their poignant death scene and then the show can switch to covering the aftermath. It’s far less interesting to watch someone balancing life with cancer for years and years, so we just don’t see it. But that way of handling it in popular media means that people tend to be Stage 4 as imminent death, and in most cases, it isn’t.
So unless LW is prepared to take on a responsibility that could last a decade or longer, it would be far better to offer a time-limited arrangement. “I’d love to spend time with you and give your friends a break, so I’d like to come stay for a month to help out.” That way he’s not setting himself up for becoming resentful when Sasha living longer than he expected, and Sasha isn’t set up for feeling stressed when he’s trying to keep going year after year. Kelly might even be more okay with it if it’s a very time-limited arrangement that he takes on periodically.
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If we look at a different cancer that’s much more likely for Sasha, breast cancer, with stage 4 over 30% of patients will be alive at 5 years post-diagnosis, and about 13% are alive past a decade post-diagnosis.
Media depictions almost never show this, because it’s far more dramatic to have a character get cancer and then it’s a flurry of activity for weeks or months until the still-vibrant-and-beautiful character has their poignant death scene and then the show can switch to covering the aftermath. It’s far less interesting to watch someone balancing life with cancer for years and years, so we just don’t see it. But that way of handling it in popular media means that people tend to be Stage 4 as imminent death, and in most cases, it isn’t.
So unless LW is prepared to take on a responsibility that could last a decade or longer, it would be far better to offer a time-limited arrangement. “I’d love to spend time with you and give your friends a break, so I’d like to come stay for a month to help out.” That way he’s not setting himself up for becoming resentful when Sasha living longer than he expected, and Sasha isn’t set up for feeling stressed when he’s trying to keep going year after year. Kelly might even be more okay with it if it’s a very time-limited arrangement that he takes on periodically.