flan327 wrote:

---

I saw this story on the national news this morning.

Apparently the mother "refused" to accept the diagnosis.

Is she influencing her minor daughter's decision? Obviously.

Is chemo "poison?"

But...will it save her life?

flan

---

 Doesn't matter - the state should not be able to force her to take poison as a "cure".  This decision is between her and her parents.  Again - just because you don't LIKE people's choices, or even understand them, does not mean you get to force them to do what you want. 

 

And I do not think chemo should ever be forced on anyone, ever.  It is a horrible treatment, and not even guaranteed to work.  Refusing chemo should not be deemed unreasonable due to horrible side effects.   It should be treated no differently than any other reasonable medical choice. 

flan327 wrote:

---

Lawyerlady wrote:

---

flan327 wrote:

---

I saw this story on the national news this morning.

Apparently the mother "refused" to accept the diagnosis.

Is she influencing her minor daughter's decision? Obviously.

Is chemo "poison?"

But...will it save her life?

flan

---

 Doesn't matter - the state should not be able to force her to take poison as a "cure".  This decision is between her and her parents.  Again - just because you don't LIKE people's choices, or even understand them, does not mean you get to force them to do what you want. 

 

And I do not think chemo should ever be forced on anyone, ever.  It is a horrible treatment, and not even guaranteed to work.  Refusing chemo should not be deemed unreasonable due to horrible side effects.   It should be treated no differently than any other reasonable medical choice. 

---

 It was reported that there is an 85% success rate with chemo.

How is this any different from radical Christian sects that convince parents to withhold medical treatment in lieu of prayer?

Who speaks for the children?

flan

---

 Where on earth did you get that number?  It is in no way correct.  And the benefits are usually only for the short term - they are only talking about 5 years, and in some instances, the side effects cause such other damage, you are talking quality of life issues.  And the long term side effects of chemo and radiation can result in a second form of cancer. 

Do you know that a majority of oncologists say if they ever got cancer they would refuse chemo?  It is a HORRIBLE "treatment". 

This is between her and her parents. The state need to butt out.

The "treatment" of chemotherapy for Hodgkins Lymphoma usually results in infertility, can cause secondary cancers, heart disease and lung disease. So, while it might "cure" your cancer, the impact on your life can still be severe, and people should be able the CHOOSE whether they want to use that treatment or not.  There are other treatments for cancer - this ONE, that is becoming less and less recommended, and can kill you in and of inself, should not be forced on anyone.

I would support the state if there is a good chance that it will work. She's 17. She has her whole life ahead of her if successful.

If there is only a 30% chance or whatever that it would work--then I'd feel differently, but it sounds like there is a "high" probability of it working. It's not a guarantee, but we need to place some faith in medical professionals.

At 18, probably not--although she is stupid for not doing so, she's a legal adult, then, and we all know many adults who make stupid decisions.

Children we try to at least shield from some of their stupid decisions until they become adults.

Ohfour wrote:

---

huskerbb wrote:

---

At 18, probably not--although she is stupid for not doing so, she's a legal adult, then, and we all know many adults who make stupid decisions.

Children we try to at least shield from some of their stupid decisions until they become adults.

---

She's not a child. Legally maybe, but she's not going to change her mind in a couple of months. If she could be tried as an adult for criminal actions, she should be able to decide her medical care... 

 

---

 But mostly, children are not tried as adults.  There are a few exceptions for very heinous crimes such as murder--but by and large, that's why we have a separate juvenile justice system--we don't try juveniles as adults. 

IMHO, the Connecticut Health Care System is out of control, period.
I think this is the same group that took control of the Peltier girl and almost killed her with a messed up diagnosis. They held her prisoner for 15 months. She is back with her family now and doing much better in their care then the hospitals.
This girl is 17, almost 18 and they are tying her down, forcing her to take the chemo. That is torture, IMHO. Court approved torture at that.
Will the forced chemo save her life? I don't know. The stress may kill her first. Can you imagine the mental anguish she is enduring?
Personal rights have gone down the drain, IMHO.
On another point, a 17 year old can join the military with parental consent and die fighting for our country. So, what the heck is the difference?

The state is overstepping. I thought any individual had the right to refuse any kind of medical treatment.

And the issue of her being a minor shouldn't matter. If she is underage, then her parents should  have the right to refuse the treatment on her behalf.

 

huskerbb wrote:

---

I would support the state if there is a good chance that it will work. She's 17. She has her whole life ahead of her if successful.

If there is only a 30% chance or whatever that it would work--then I'd feel differently, but it sounds like there is a "high" probability of it working. It's not a guarantee, but we need to place some faith in medical professionals.

---

 That should be a CHOICE. 

Blankie wrote:

---

This does remind me of the Justina Pelletier case. Very very scary what the Mass. child welfare system and Boston Children's Hospital were able to get away with in that case. Essentially kidnapping a child against her and her parents' will and holding her at Children's Hospital for over a year. The legal battle was a nightmare. I can't find a current article about it that says whether she has been returned to her parents. She may still be in Mass. state custody.

I hope this doesn't happen to Cassandra. She may actually be safer running away or going underground until she turns 18 in September.

 

---

She was returned to her parents care last summer by order of the court. There is a facebook page for her that you can check out the latest information. 

Blankie wrote:

---

This does remind me of the Justina Pelletier case. Very very scary what the Mass. child welfare system and Boston Children's Hospital were able to get away with in that case. Essentially kidnapping a child against her and her parents' will and holding her at Children's Hospital for over a year. The legal battle was a nightmare. I can't find a current article about it that says whether she has been returned to her parents. She may still be in Mass. state custody.

I hope this doesn't happen to Cassandra. She may actually be safer running away or going underground until she turns 18 in September.

 

---

 Yes.  They should move immediately.

-- Edited by Lawyerlady on Friday 9th of January 2015 02:44:54 PM

Lawyerlady wrote:

---

Blankie wrote:

---

This does remind me of the Justina Pelletier case. Very very scary what the Mass. child welfare system and Boston Children's Hospital were able to get away with in that case. Essentially kidnapping a child against her and her parents' will and holding her at Children's Hospital for over a year. The legal battle was a nightmare. I can't find a current article about it that says whether she has been returned to her parents. She may still be in Mass. state custody.

I hope this doesn't happen to Cassandra. She may actually be safer running away or going underground until she turns 18 in September.

 

---

 Yes.  They should move immediately.

-- Edited by Lawyerlady on Friday 9th of January 2015 02:44:54 PM

---

 Good idea. Or take a very long vacation in another state until September.

huskerbb wrote:

---

Lawyerlady wrote:

---

huskerbb wrote:

---

I would support the state if there is a good chance that it will work. She's 17. She has her whole life ahead of her if successful.

If there is only a 30% chance or whatever that it would work--then I'd feel differently, but it sounds like there is a "high" probability of it working. It's not a guarantee, but we need to place some faith in medical professionals.

---

 That should be a CHOICE. 

---

 Not always, especially when it's a child.

---

Then that becomes the parent's choice...not the states... 

I just keep thinking about stories of teen suicides.

A typical response is: "What do they know about life when they are 'just' a teen?"

flan

Ohfour wrote:

---

flan327 wrote:

---

I just keep thinking about stories of teen suicides.

A typical response is: "What do they know about life when they are 'just' a teen?"

flan

---

I've never heard that... 

---

 It's been said here...or a variant thereof.

flan

Oh good lord, she wanted to try alternative paths before trying chemo. For just a few months. Mother supported her. And the courts threatened the mother with losing parental rights. It is so similar to Justina it is sickening.

Remind me never to move to Massachusetts.

The police were banging on the doors and the windows of her home while she cowered in the closet, a 17-year-old girl recounted. She remembered clutching her phone, crying, calling her mother.

“I was scared,” she wrote of the experience.

It may sound like a drug raid, or the climax of a movie. But in fact, the police, along with representatives of Connecticut’s Department of Children and Families, had come to take the girl for chemotherapy.

The girl, identified in court papers as Cassandra C., learned that she had Hodgkin’s lymphoma in September. Ever since, she and her mother have been entangled in a legal battle with the state of Connecticut over whether Cassandra, who is still a minor, can refuse the chemotherapy that doctors say is likely to save her life. Without it, the girl’s doctors say, she will die.

“It’s poison,” Cassandra’s mother, Jackie Fortin, said of chemotherapy in an interview on Friday. “Does it kill the cancer? I guess they say it does kill the cancer. But it also kills everything else in your body.”
Photo
Cassandra C. learned she had cancer in September. Credit Cassandra C./Cassandra C., via Associated Press

Ms. Fortin continued, “It’s her body, and she should not be forced to do anything with her body.”

Doctors said in court documents that they had explained to Cassandra that while chemotherapy had side effects, serious risks were minimal.

On Thursday, Connecticut’s Supreme Court ruled that Cassandra had had the chance to show at trial that she was a “mature minor,” competent to make her own medical decisions, but had failed to do so. And so the chemotherapy treatments, which had already begun, will continue.

Cassandra was a healthy, artistic 16-year-old before the illness was diagnosed, her mother said. She liked to paint and draw, mostly abstract pieces, but also cartoons and silly things. She had a paper route and a retail job. She had a tattoo on her back of the character Simba from “The Lion King,” the namesake of her cherished, yellow tabby cat. She had been home-schooled since the 10th grade.

Then she found a lump on the right side of her neck. She went to her pediatrician, and after rounds of tests that dragged on for months, doctors at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford told her she had Hodgkin’s lymphoma. According to court documents, her doctors said that with chemotherapy, and sometimes radiation, patients had an 85 percent chance of being disease-free after five years.

Ms. Fortin, of Windsor Locks, near Hartford, said that she and her daughter had wanted a second opinion and a fresh battery of tests. They had begun looking for a new team of doctors to verify the diagnosis, and hoped to find alternatives to chemotherapy.

But the state said in court documents that Ms. Fortin had not brought her daughter to some medical appointments and was “not attending to Cassandra’s medical needs in a timely basis.”

The Department of Children and Families took temporary custody of the girl in late October 2014. Two weeks later, she was allowed to go home, so long as she underwent chemotherapy. But after two days of treatment, she ran away from home.
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story

“Although I didn’t have any intention of proceeding with the chemotherapy once I returned home, I endured two days of it,” Cassandra wrote in an essay published in The Hartford Courant this week. “Two days was enough; mentally and emotionally, I could not go through with chemotherapy.”

About a week after running away, Cassandra came home. In her essay, she wrote that she had returned because she was afraid her disappearance might land her mother in jail. In December, she was hospitalized.

“I was strapped to a bed by my wrists and ankles and sedated,” she wrote in the essay, which was accompanied by a photo of her in the hospital. “I woke up in the recovery room with a port surgically placed in my chest. I was outraged and felt completely violated.”

“How long is a person actually supposed to live, and why?” she wrote. “I care about the quality of my life, not just the quantity.”

In a statement this week, the Department of Children and Families said it preferred to work with families, not compel them, but had no choice in some cases.

“When experts — such as the several physicians involved in this case — tell us with certainty that a child will die as a result of leaving a decision up to a parent,” the statement said, “then the Department has a responsibility to take action.”

Cassandra’s legal battle is not unprecedented, but it is unusual, said Dr. Paul S. Appelbaum, director of the Division of Law, Ethics, and Psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons.

“Nobody likes to overrule a parent and a child, particularly when they are in agreement,” he said.

Courts tend to be cautious about ordering treatment over a patient’s objections, Dr. Appelbaum said, and whether they do so often involves several factors, including the seriousness of the condition, the child’s maturity, and concern about whether the child’s opinions are being influenced by a parent or other third party. Several of those variables appear to have figured in this case, he said.

But Ms. Fortin’s lawyer, James P. Sexton, said that Cassandra was only months shy of her 18th birthday, when the decision about her care would be hers to make. By then, the chemotherapy will most likely be over.

Today she is confined to the hospital. Her communications are limited, as are her visits with her mother. Mr. Sexton said the family would continue to fight in court.

"Oh good lord, she wanted to try alternative paths before trying chemo. For just a few months."

 

Sorry, to me this is very disturbing.

With cancer, "just a few months" can be a death sentence. My sister's GYN told her they would watch her breast lump for a few months ....

 

Deadly, absolutely deadly.

 

I'm not saying that it's a good idea to force anything on someone; I'm just saying that suggesting unproven (probably crackpot) "alternative therapy" for a few months is STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID.

Cancer spreads. Cancer metastasizes. My mother had a 2mm lung tumor (cigarettes) that spread to her brain, and grew into a golf-ball sized octopus, with long tentacles. (Also spread to other organs, but those didn't have time to kill her.)

A few months.

 

A few months of alternative therapy and this girl will probably be dead too.

 

 

Lawyerlady wrote:

---

They tied her down to a bed, sedated her, and forced something in her body she didn't want.

This is no different than rape.

---

 I am really shocked that a hospital agreed to do this! It's battery. Yes, she's only 17 but you can't force someone to have a procedure.  We can't even roll down the hall without a consent because we could be sued. She needs to get emancipated like yesterday. 

Southern_Belle wrote:

---

Lawyerlady wrote:

---

They tied her down to a bed, sedated her, and forced something in her body she didn't want.

This is no different than rape.

---

 I am really shocked that a hospital agreed to do this! It's battery. Yes, she's only 17 but you can't force someone to have a procedure.  We can't even roll down the hall without a consent because we could be sued. She needs to get emancipated like yesterday. 

---

 Too late.  The State is her guardian now. 

Lady Gaga Snerd wrote:

---

Due to effective response to treatment and early diagnosis, the relative survival for Hodgkin lymphoma is higher in younger men and women. The ten-year relative survival rates generally exceeded 80% for persons in the age group of 15 - 44 years at diagnosis. This rate was substantially lower in older age groups. When the person is diagnosed at age 75 or older, relative survival was poor, 38% at five years and 21% at 10 years.

» The sex of the patient also impacts the survival rate. The five-year relative survival rate in young adults was 87% for males and 93% for females.

---

 Irrelevant. 

Lady Gaga Snerd wrote:

---

First to call chemo "poison", well EVERY medication has a little "poison" in it if you take too much of it. And, the survival rate is very high. So, yes, like everything in life there will be temporary pain and discomfort. Unfortunately, there are times in life you endure suffering to get to a better place. I am a bit bewildered about a mother who would not want a 93% chance of success for her daughter to live. I think mom may just be in denial and looking at her daughter thinking, oh she LOOKS healthy because many cancer patients look like they are in their normal state of health for a long time while the cancer ravages them internally and then in short order it's a steep decline. I wonder what the father's position is a well?

---

 She was diagnosed in SEPTEMBER, and wanted to get a second opinion.  The State stepped in immediately and took over by October without allowing her to seek another medical opinion.  That's big brother at its finest.