TABLE 5.

Maintaining prognostic uncertainty.

Themes	Illustrative quotes	Patient
Relinquishing knowledge	Believe me; hearing I’ve got ovarian cancer; that’s enough. That’s going to make my head spin. I don’t need the extra 5 min on the whirligig you know. It’s like, I’m getting enough information with that piece of information. And this, hmm, how do I word this? I think sometimes we do think; like we put things in numbers, in categories where really it doesn’t need to be … so people with stage I have a greater chance of recovery, and people from stage 4 have a less chance of recovery. Does that help? Does knowing that really help? … Seriously, I don’t think knowing those numbers helps anybody; I really don’t think it helps because like I said, it, they’re just numbers. And like Dr. ________ said, it’s a number; you’re one in a thousand and it’s what it is you know … we’ve got to concentrate on what we can do.	2
	I don’t know that doctors may not tell their patients how grim it is because, well like he told me; no matter what, if it was in my bones or if it was, then the course of treatment was going to be the same. I was still getting these six cycles of chemo, this chemo, no matter what the course was. Whether it was in my bones or whether it was everywhere or if it was just here … So in my mind, I’m thinking that he didn’t give me all of that total information because it wasn’t changing my plan of care …. It isn’t going to make a difference. Because the treatment’s the treatment. And what you have at the end is what you have at the end.	4
	No. I’m not worried about it because if it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen. I’m strictly like—she said to me today, “I’d like to do a CT scan, I think it’s come back.” Okay, let’s do the CT scan. And he said, we’ll start treatment again.” “Okay, let’s do treatment again.” I’ve just accepted it. Is that understandable? I’ve accepted that I have cancer. And I’ve just gotta do it.	18
Embracing ignorance	So I think that’s my, the way I am … it’s like we don’t need to know. We’re suited to take it a day at a time and yet, I mean, it’s okay to plan somewhat; I’m not saying that. Like okay, if suddenly we couldn’t stay with our family, then that’s okay; we kind of know, we’re free, we can do this. Well there are other options you know. That’s been our life … Yeah, we’re cut out for that I guess but it’s very freeing.	1
	For me, it wasn’t helpful because I didn’t want any limit. I watched it with my mother. I watched what limits do to people across every, any level. If you tell someone who’s a quadriplegic that they can’t ski and then you go up and you see them on the mountain, the kids that weren’t told that they couldn’t. And I just think that for me, I don’t want to know; I didn’t want to know what my chances were or what my odds were … I’ve watched it with friends who get diagnosed with something and they, that’s what they; you know I only have 5 years, I only have, the doctor said you know I have 3–5 years and that’s all they think about and I thought, “I have today…”	8
	I mean again, it’s because I think it has to do with the, like providers holding some amount of the spaciousness of the unknown. Like here’s what we can do and here’s what seems to work but they don’t know and I think that’s something in medicine overall. Like it’s about fixing; not about health … I mean you know you can’t push it but if you hold the space, if you hold the space for it, there’s an invitation also to, for us as patients to like drop a little under. I mean some people can’t.	7