"With drastic medical advances being made almost DAILY..."
Regrettably, the overwhelming majority of advances are merely incremental, especially in oncology. Extending patient survival (in late stages) by a few months is counted as a major advance and trumpeted to the max, both in the media and in the stock market. So her choice was either to hope and wait for a revolutionary advance (and who knows when it is coming - exponentially skyrocketing costs of pharmaceutical R&D mean that most of the easy pickings have already been accomplished) or to take a plunge and save herself the trouble of waiting. She chose the latter, and her decision cannot be called irrational.
So sad...........who am I to say, who are ANY of us to say what OUR decisions would be when faced with the same dilemma as this young woman!! I've always hoped to see a "cure" for cancer, at least, in my children's lifetimes.