When my mother/best friend was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer, we thought our lives were over. My mother always insisted that she would NEVER endure the torture her Grandmother, who had been diagnosed back in the 1970's, had experienced. Through gentle persuasion, we convinced her that treatment had changed drastically since then and she decided to fight.
Fight it she did and was cancer free . . . until she was diagnosed with a second primary cancer - pancreatic which had already metastasized to her liver. According to the doctors, this was very rare. They gave her three to five months to survive and called upon Hospice. She fought hard and, in fact, beat the odds given to her. She was a real champ who did not want to leave her daughter behind.