John Carroll, the founder of Endpoints News has stage 4 Merkel cell carcinoma and quite a story to tell:

If I had stayed at Valley Baptist and been treated with chemo, I likely would have seen Merkel cell carcinoma rear back up within a few months, putting me on a statistically short path to the grave.

[…]

My case manager said that if I wanted to leave they would have to arrange a transfer. But I already had the lay of the land from the small army of assistants and nurses who kept the hospital on its rickety track. A nurse told my wife and I — sotto voce — that as we were headed into the weekend, that could take days.

You should just go, she said quietly.

My wife drove the get away car after I signed the AMA (against medical advice), and a friend in the industry helped text my way into MD Anderson as we made the six-hour trip north.

At the other end of that journey was immunotherapy, from a company that Carroll disparaged as a journalist. So it goes…