One reason some cancer patients put off going home is that they're worried they'll have to be always going back and forth over long distances for their therapy sessions. This was a legitimate concern not many years ago, but things have changed.
    In a way, things have come full-circle. In the first half of this century, medicine had much less to offer in the way of specific therapies than it does now. Before the age of antibiotics, modern diagnostic tools and effective treatment for many now curable diseases, doctors sent their patients to the hospital only when they were extremely ill. Medical care was given primarily in the home or in the doctor's office. But as medical advances and technological developments gradually led to superb diagnostic and treatment methods, hospitals became the primary centers for medical care. People were admitted for complex diagnostic studies and for the initiation of therapy, especially for serious diseases like cancer.
    But the pendulum has been swinging away from the hospital as the focus of medical care and back to the home and the doctor's office. Both can be just as effective places for treatment as hospitals are. And both are a lot more convenient.
    Doctors have realized for some time that they could deliver the same chemotherapy program they gave in hospitals in the comfort of their own offices where efficient and experienced oncology nurses, lounge chairs and television distraction were available. Patients also found this far more acceptable and desirable than a stay in the hospital, especially for treatment that lasted only four to six hours. After a few years of observation that this office procedure was effective, safe and satisfactory, it was not a radical step to perform the same procedure in a person's home.