I had a spot of melanoma cut out of my leg a decade or more ago. If I don’t get killed first, I fully expect to eventually die very painfully and horribly, since that’s how my people tend to go. So I’ve always kept an eye out for symptoms.
As cancer experiences go, I probably had the easiest possible ride - I found it myself, and went through four doctors until I found one that would do a biopsy. My insurance paid (eventually) and thus I am alive with nothing but a minor scar.
I was pretty paranoid about my own and others’ minor skin blemishes for the first five or six years afterwards, but that passed; now I am merely vigilant.
Slow painful death is not uncommon in my world, but I don’t think I’ve ever had anything I’d call “survivor’s guilt”. Sometimes I regret allowing some of the treatments that have prolonged the suffering of loved ones, but honestly there’s never been a case where I wouldn’t have been fighting against my own family, so it’s probably best that didn’t happen. It’s hard enough being a caregiver to someone for years without having bad blood between relatives complicating things.
