I'm currently prepping a story with a protagonist who has a terminal illness, but I have trouble deciding what that illness should be. I would really appreciate some ideas/suggestions. Here are the basic criteria and story elements: - character is female, 25-26 years old. she is diagnosed around that age, and without treatment has a a few months up to 1 year to live - the illness is not curable and definitely terminal. treatment to extend life span (by maybe a few years) is possible, but very complicated and (preferably) also costly. the patient would not be able to live normally and would have to invest a lot of time and energy in the treatment. - basically, the character rejects the treatment and chooses to live life in her remaining months by working on making her dream come true. there are physcial symptoms and she is slowly getting sicker. while she doesn't do treatment for the disease, she may take medicine to ease pain/discomfort or other symptoms. Still she is mostly able to function normally beside some inconveniences My first thought was to go the cancer route, which I believe would be applicable to most, if not all, the aspects listed above. Still, I want to consider some other alternatives before finally deciding. Thank you in advance
Here are the top autoimmune disorders for young adults. Many succumb and die. https://greatist.com/health/young-adults-and-autoimmune-disease#2 Instead of "incurable", some people do not respond to known treatments. I'm guessing less than five-percent are unresponsive. If you know the blood type or family health issues, the doctor could give a negative prognosis for something that is curable. Achieving the result you are seeking.
