Would you rather know you are sick and dying of something OR

I think I'd want to know if it's something temporary that can be dealt with (fixed) without chronic treatment or medication or any sort of ongoing lifestyle change. If it's something in the second category, I would just hope I was able to be symptom free as long as possible, after which I would use whatever resources I could to get rid of the symptoms. Chronic illness is just not something I can deal with, and I've always known it, so my choice is not to deal and just live lol.

would you actually want to know in advance and then have to deal with things like radiation and chemo though? I wouldn't. And if I did find out anything, I would not do anything unless I started actually being physically sick to the point I couldn't function.

I would totally do what I could that didn't make 'being' worse, if that makes sense to you. Anything that would benefit me as far as how I felt, looked, acted, enhanced my ability to live the way I wanted to - those are things I would take advantage of. Anything that detracted or took away from me, that made me feel, look, and act worse, I would avoid like the plague. The problem is, a lot of treatments for things are horrible and cause people to downgrade fast in terms of being independent, feeling good, and keeping up with a normal life. That is in essence why I would prefer to avoid those things. With all the technology we have now, you would think we would have figured out how to 'breed out' side effects of things. It's been at least a century of research behind us, I've no idea why we are still so newbie in that area.

I think if I were physically sick to the point where there was no question there was something wrong with me, at that point I would probably be interested in figuring out what was wrong. HOWEVER. That doesn't mean I would want to do anything that would ADD to the symptoms, make me worse or feel worse - even short term - if in the end it wasn't going to really make a difference. I would prefer to measure the pros and cons like I do with everything else - if the benefit outweighs the trouble, MAYBE. If the benefit is equal to the trouble, probably not. If the benefit is less than the trouble, nope. I hate seeing people suffer and I don't understand why some people will suffer for so long, and how some people even welcome it. Living doesn't mean simply being alive. It means being alive in the capacity you want to function and live. I would never ever want to be a vegetable.... like if I were in an accident that rendered me braindead. I would not want to be kept alive, a prisoner in my body, unable to communicate, maybe even in a coma for years. I can't even imagine what something like that would be like.

I absolutely agree with you, which is why I wrote this discussion. It's hard to know EXACTLY what I would do because I haven't been there, but I have watched other people die and I know from between what they have expressed and wanted and knowing what kind of person I am, I would not be able to stand dealing with KNOWING. Some people have all sorts of prenatal tests too and say they want all this info, all I needed to know was do I plan for a boy or a girl. I had zero interest in finding out anything else, because regardless, it would have no impact on my life with the baby. SOME people choose to end a pregnancy or figure out all sorts of other stuff. I would rather keep life as normal as possible instead. I think it would be terrible to be stressed out your whole pregnancy or dread giving birth, and that's what would happen if you knew something bad was going to happen. Some people are obsessed with knowing everything, I only need to know the things that matter to me to accomplish my goals and be happy. Psychologically, I doubt I could deal either. I'm not a good patient and the only time I was ever actually admitted into a hospital was when my daughter was born. I wanted to leave IMMEDIATELY. I got about 2 hours sleep total in 3 days there and went home with my daughter and actually rested more/ate better the first day home, which some people say is the hardest because then you have to 'do everything yourself'. I would prefer to do everything myself, as I pretty much trusted only my husband and older kids at that time to take care of me and not do something I didn't want lol. I'm not a 'sick' person... I never have been. I might get really sick once a year, or injure myself to the point where I can't do anything for a couple days... a week, but again, it's not something I do on a regular basis. The idea of having some chronic illness would make me pretty angry, I would ignore it as long as possible lol.

As long as you take care of yourself, diabetes doesn't become terminal like cancer though... you'd be unlikely to be made sick or worse by the treatment used to control it, right? Did you get diabetes later or did you have it as a child... insulin dependent? I know people who seem to be just fine as diabetics and some who are sick as dogs all the time. That would be a tough one for me because I love to eat, and I love to eat everything. I can't cut out things - and I run about 40-50 miles a week lol! I know exercise is supposed to be good for diabetics but I'm not sure if THAT much would be.