Jillian Chantal

Oncologists must have the worst jobs. I couldn’t do it. Watching someone deteriorate before your eyes is hard enough when it’s one person. I can’t imagine doing it all day, every day as my job.

When the patient first presents, usually they have no idea that have cancer and a lot of them are at a healthy weight, doing their day to day tasks with maybe some pain or nagging worry that something is wrong. But then there are the ones who have no idea they have any issues at all. Maybe a PSA test comes back with not good scores or they have a pacemaker that they think needs some adjustment as they have some twitching that radiates to that area and they are shocked at the diagnosis.

One happened to my husband and one happened to my brother-in-law.

My brother-in-law was a helicopter mechanic and was probably 6’2” tall and weighed 240 lbs when he was diagnosed. He also did a lot of farming and working on tractors and other outdoor activities. He went in to have his pacemaker checked and found out he had esophageal cancer.  He survived for about 8 years, but he deteriorated in the last four so much that he had to leave his job. His doctor told him he lived longer than anyone he’d ever treated.

My husband was also 6’2” but 220 lbs when he got a bad PSA score. He’s a 4th degree black belt, did outside work, hiked, ran, and just was all around an active man. He is left handed and used his left hand a lot in his day job as a CPA. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the beginning of 2022. They didn’t start radiation until July of that year. They kept putting it off for some reason or other. After 45 radiations, they said he was done. No PET scan though.

By December of that year, he was having severe headaches which he never had in his life.

In the hospital, in the emergency room, they found two brain tumors. Then they decided to do a PET scan.

That scan showed stage four lung cancer. A man who absolutely never smoked and was not raised in a home of smokers. It was a stunning diagnosis to say the least.

He was immediately sent to a neurosurgeon who actually found five brain tumors and was able to use a gamma knife procedure to get rid of them. We were so relieved and he went back to his marital arts and resumed living like all was well, hiking, trips to mountains, driving cross country, working. Life was good even with treatments.  

Radiation and chemo for the lung started after a round of tablets (that cost $23,000.00 a month—thank God for a grant that paid that).

The lung cancer is actually a mutation that will grow back if he doesn’t have chemo once a month for the rest of his life. He was okay with complying with that as his life was normal except for those days he had to hang out at the chemo place.

For about a year, all was well except for having to continue the chemo (which didn’t make him sick or lose his hair) and radiation. He thought he had it licked.

In December of 2023, he started losing the use of his left hand. He found he couldn’t write or use the calculator, but he kept trying. He had some therapy and changed over to use his right hand as best he could. The neurologist said it was edema at first and would go away, but eventually she said it was from the one large tumor sitting on a certain area of his brain too long. Would that they had done the PET scan in the summer of 2022!!

In the two years since December of 2023, the decline in my husband has been profound. His whole left side has become the enemy. He went through a stage where he could barely lift the leg to get up the step into the kitchen or the step into the hallway to the bedrooms. But he was walking unaided. He was still driving and able to do most daily activities. It was hard in the summer of 2025 when he had to hire someone to do the mowing, weed eating and outdoor chores he loved to do. He also had to retire at the end of 2024.

He’d already had to give up the martial arts in summer of 2024 and now he couldn’t putter around outside. He tried to camp and hike and he couldn’t do it. He and our sons used to travel to Colorado and Utah and other places to hike. And now that was taken from him as well.

In October of 2025, he got pneumonia. In the hospital for 14 days and now has to use a walker or rollator. He’s on oxygen full time and a chemo drug that took his hair and his strength. He basically sits in a bedroom watching television. We’ve had to call the fire department to pick him up off the floor when he fell trying to be independent one night. He came into the office this week, but could barely get around. His legs drag behind him and he can barely lift his feet.

He’s gone from 220 lbs and healthy to about 175 lbs and weak now and has to have help to get to the bathroom, the shower and do daily tasks. He’s still mentally capable which is great, but he’s frustrated and rightfully so. To lose all the things you love to do in basically two years is tragic.

So, I couldn’t be an oncologist. How can they deal with seeing people go from active lifestyles to a shell of themselves in such short time periods. It has to be such a hard thing to see. I wonder sometimes how his doctor feels when my husband staggers into his office, with a walker or in a wheelchair, barely able to function and how many times a day his doctor (who is great, by the way) sees the exact same thing with his other patients. And how he doesn’t go home and weep every night. I don’t get how the man keeps going as an oncologist. I am seeing one person deteriorate, I can’t imagine having a full slate of patients who seem to be dying before his eyes.

I’m grateful for those who can do the job, but they have to be some of the strongest people mentally in the world.